DOD to apply Quantum Leap ideas

This summer, Defense Department and Army officials will start using one of the 13 horizontal fusion ideas demonstrated in last August's Quantum Leap military exercise. Officials hope the rapid posting and sharing of information gathered by sensors and spies will give coalition forces in Iraq greater knowledge of enemy locations, tactics and attacks, called situational awareness.

The officials will start posting information just gathered by troops and spies at a specific site on the military's intranet, called the Global Information Grid (GIG), which warfighters and analysts in the region and worldwide can readily access. The network-centric warfare capability originated from the horizontal fusion program's collateral information space concept.

"We are in the final planning leg," said John Osterholz, DOD's director of architecture and interoperability, during a telephone interview today. "We expect increased accessibility for warfighters and intelligence analysts."

Some information gathered by soldiers in Iraqi towns gets buried in their databases. The military wants to make it quickly available to troops and analysts, Osterholz said.

DOD and Army officials will install some hardware and software at a site in the region. But they will rely primarily on the GIG's current infrastructure to support the collateral information space concept, he said.