Army shares bomb data

Officials at McDonald Bradley announced today that Army soldiers started using a new militarywide data-sharing system earlier this month that lets them access intelligence on the battlefield to decommission roadside and homemade bombs in Iraq.

Some soldiers from the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps can now use notebook computers to quickly search large amounts of information on the military’s classified network to identify the explosive device and instant message with military experts. The capability marks the first operational stage of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) Collateral Space initiative, part of the Defense Department’s Horizontal Fusion initiative.

“Seeing this first phase of this ambitious technology development and integration program come to fruition is exciting for our team that created it, for our entire company and for our armed forces that will ultimately benefit from its availability and use,” Kenneth Bartee, McDonald Bradley’s president and chief executive officer, said today in a statement.

Horizontal Fusion involves setting aside space on the military’s intranet called the Global Information Grid so warfighters and analysts can quickly and easily post and access satellite imagery, drone video and information gathered by troops and spies on the ground. During the past two years, McDonald Bradley officials built a Web-based, services-oriented computer architecture that pulls multiple, disparate military data repositories together.

Company officials also announced they received an $11.1 million contract to enhance the search capabilities of DIA’s Collateral Space initiative. Those capabilities include accessing images and multiple databases simultaneously. They will also connect to it new data sources from the intelligence community.

The new contract marks McDonald Bradley’s third Horizontal Fusion contract. The company received an $8 million contract in 2003 and a $20 million contract in 2004.