“Beverly brings a broad-range of management experience in multi-billion dollar enterprises, start-ups and turnaround situations to the company,” says Bill Pardue, CEO of ObjectFX^®. “We are excited to have her on our team as her expertise of sales, customer service and marketing processes will help to launch ObjectFX^® to a higher level of company recognition within the government and commercial marketplaces.”

As President of ObjectFX^®, Parker will oversee the company’s business development and marketing teams to develop the overall strategy, new market segment identification and sales growth for ObjectFX^®’s geospatial decision-support engine, SpatialRules^®, and web mapping tool, SpatialFX^®. Parker will also manage strategic partnerships and the existing government and commercial customer base, including relationships with Lockheed Martin, the United States Army and Union Pacific. 

Previously, Parker served an extensive 22-year career with LexisNexis as senior vice president of sales and general manager of online information solutions for federal and corporate clients, co-founding the LexisNexis risk solutions unit. Beverly later worked as an executive with Bank of America and Gartner, Inc, where she designed and executed sales performance plans and a turnaround global marketing strategy. She directed post-acquisition integration of global sales teams at MarketResearch.com and led marketing and sales. Most recently, Parker was a co-founder of the data analytics and IT firm, Qbase LLC.

Parker received her B.A from the University of Evansville in Indiana, and completed executive programs at The Darden School of Executive Education, University of Virginia, Templeton College and the University of Oxford.

About ObjectFX^®

ObjectFX^® delivers geospatial solutions to leverage the value of dynamic spatial and temporal data in gathering intelligence, managing risk, and monitoring and improving operations. These solutions allow clients to respond more quickly to changing conditions in their operating and risk environments. ObjectFX^® employs a team of skilled consultants and developers with multiple levels of security clearances. This team assists customers in designing, implementing, and managing ObjectFX^® solutions and providing outcomes-focused intelligence and risk consulting services. ObjectFX^® products and services are a foundation or complementary technology for a wide range of applications used across multiple vertical industries and organizations. Representative customers include Boeing, General Dynamics, SAIC and United Airlines.

Bill brings more than 25 years of general management, product development and marketing experience to ObjectFX^® in the information-technology and publishing sectors, ranging from multi-billion-dollar global enterprises to startups. He also is a partner in TransVoyant^™ LLC, the Alexandria-based private equity firm that purchased ObjectFX^® earlier this summer.

In his new role, Mr. Pardue will lead the company in identifying market needs in the defense, intelligence, security and transportation logistics sectors, and decide how ObjectFX^® solutions can best fill those needs through the advancement of new and enhanced technologies, partnerships and through acquisitions.

“Bill brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in building outstanding decision-support information products,” said Tim Fleischer, Chairman of ObjectFX^®. “His strong leadership, business management background and market knowledge will help both accelerate ObjectFX^®’s growth and support our customers in delivering on their missions.”

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Pardue previously was President & CEO of LexisNexis for its corporate and federal markets in the United States and also the Chief Global Product Officer for LexisNexis worldwide. He organized and launched the LexisNexis Risk Solutions business unit and also LexisNexis Special Services Inc.

In 2005, Pardue founded Qbase LLC, which delivers data analytics solutions to the U.S. intelligence community, military services and federal agencies. Bill also served previously as president of Gartner Intelligence, a unit of global IT market research firm Gartner Inc., and was director of marketing for The Washington Post. He formerly practiced law in Washington, D.C.

It’s great to join ObjectFX^® at such a strategic time in its development,” said Pardue. “The company has a fantastic track record in delivering unique tools to integrate, dynamically analyze, and make sense out of massive volumes of geospatial data. I look forward to working with Tim and the rest of the team as we invest in ObjectFX^® solutions and advance the company to its next phase of growth.”

Pardue is a member of the Trust Committee of the Miriam Rosenthal Memorial Trust Fund and of the American Bar Association and District of Columbia Bar Association. He is a magna cum laude graduate of McNeese State University. Mr. Pardue previously served on the founding Executive Board for the Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology and on the Board of Directors of Congressional Information Service Inc.

About ObjectFX^®

ObjectFX^® delivers geospatial solutions to leverage the value of dynamic spatial and temporal data in gathering intelligence, managing risk, and monitoring and improving operations. In 2010, ObjectFX^® won the prestigious Industry Achievement Award from the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation for the development of SpatialRules^®, a Complex Event Processing engine for geospatial data. ObjectFX^® products and services are a foundation or complementary technology for a wide range of applications used across multiple vertical industries and organizations. Representative customers include Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, the United States Army, Union Pacific and United Airlines.

About TransVoyant^™ LLC

TransVoyant^™ is a private equity and advisory firm that invests in and actively supports early to mid-stage companies to achieve profitable growth. TransVoyant^™ helps portfolio companies innovate and invent, whether in changing business models, pursuing new markets, capitalizing on emerging technologies or attracting superb talent. TransVoyant^™ professionals deploy relationship capital, intellectual capital, and innovative processes to achieve the targeted results. Our investments concentrate on the intersection where public sector and private sector converge to solve critical national economic and security problems. We leverage a proven investment approach and corporate-development methodology to help each of our portfolio companies succeed. TransVoyant^™ delivers exceptional returns for our investors and advanced information-technology solutions for our world. Our headquarters are located in Alexandria, Virginia.

For more information on TransVoyant^™, please visit www.TransVoyant.com

The company also announced that significant investments are underway for continued enhancements to SpatialRules^®, ObjectFX^®’s geospatial decision-support engine for analyzing massive streams of spatial and temporal data. “Both our commercial and government clients have asked for these advancements,” said the company’s new Chairman, Tim Fleischer. “We are excited about releasing the new features later this year.”

SpatialRules^® won the prestigious Industry Achievement Award last year from the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. The company maintains a long-running cooperative research and development agreement with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

David Hemphill, who continues as Chief Technology Officer for ObjectFX^®, said the new product functionality will help fill serious gaps existing in the marketplace for key user groups in defense, intelligence, security and law-enforcement, along with customers in the transportation management and logistics sectors. Clients will be working as joint development partners on the new program, with more details to be announced this fall, Hemphill said.

ObjectFX^® will maintain its offices in Minneapolis and has opened offices in Alexandria, Virginia. With the acquisition and new ownership, ObjectFX^® becomes a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business. Steve Panzer, who led the company as its President through a strategic review and the sale of the business, remains with ObjectFX^® as a senior consultant.

The acquisition and capitalization of ObjectFX^® is made possible by TransVoyant^™ LLC, a private-equity firm based in Alexandria, VA. Tim Fleischer, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and former Naval officer, is the firm’s Chairman. He holds a Master of Science degree in Management Information Systems from the George Washington University and is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). Mr. Fleischer founded and is Chairman of Portal Dynamics (http://www.portal-dynamics.com) and PD Systems (http://www.pd-sys.net). These companies serve the U.S. military and civilian agencies with information technology, energy, and telecommunications solutions for global logistics, maintenance and training support.

About ObjectFX^®

ObjectFX^® delivers geospatial solutions to leverage the value of dynamic spatial and temporal data in gathering intelligence, managing risk, and monitoring and improving operations. These solutions allow clients to respond more quickly to changing conditions in their operating and risk environments. ObjectFX^® employs a team of skilled consultants and developers with multiple levels of security clearances. This team assists customers in designing, implementing, and managing ObjectFX solutions and providing outcomes-focused intelligence and risk consulting services. ObjectFX^® products and services are a foundation or complementary technology for a wide range of applications used across multiple vertical industries and organizations. Representative customers include Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, the United States Army, Union Pacific and United Airlines.

Each year the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation presents awards to the most influential members of the geospatial intelligence community from academia, government, and industry. Recognized for outstanding achievements and innovations, winners are selected based on their contributions for advancing the intelligence tradecraft.

“It’s quite an honor to be selected,” stated Steve Panzer. “This is a testament to the hard work and contributions of not only our people at ObjectFX but our mission partners as well. ObjectFX places a high value on our partnerships within the intelligence community. This award confirms we’re doing a lot of the right things.”

ObjectFX originally developed SpatialRules in cooperation with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). As a complex event processor, SpatialRules is capable of analyzing billions of sensor inputs to detect events such as when objects cluster together or move apart, when a population suddenly increases or decreases within a zone, or objects move into or out of geo-fenced areas.

“An important advantage that SpatialRules delivers is the ability to correlate events between many different kinds of data sources using time and location,” said David Hemphill. “This provides a linking mechanism to fuse tens, hundreds, or thousands of data sources together into a common view.”

By cross correlating multiple layers of intelligence, a more complete picture is formed, providing better decision making tools for C4ISR, situational awareness, mission planning, force tracking, and other intelligence, defense and homeland security missions. In both the real-time and forensic modes, SpatialRules can extend the analyst’s capabilities so they can do more with the resources they have.

About ObjectFX

ObjectFX is a privately held company that provides tools to leverage the full value of dynamic geospatial and temporal data for intelligence, defense, and homeland security. Their suite of products include SpatialRules, a Complex Event Processing (CEP) Engine that provides real time analysis of spatial and temporal data; SpatialFX, a toolkit for embedding web-based mapping and imagery services into applications; and Symbology Server, a web service for dynamically providing map symbology including the full range of MIL-STD 2525 and Homeland Security symbology sets. For more information, visit ObjectFX at http://www.objectfx.com.

About USGIF

The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational foundation dedicated to promoting the tradecraft and developing a stronger community of interest between government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals whose mission focus is the development and application of geospatial intelligence data to address national security objectives. For more information, visit USGIF at http://www.usgif.org.

Initially established in 1999, when NGA was still NIMA, the NGA/ObjectFX CRADA has provided a vehicle whereby commercial software could be both enhanced and tailored to better meet the needs of the government’s geospatial programs. By gaining access via this partnership arrangement, ObjectFX was able to transition its commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, oriented originally towards commercial vehicle tracking for the transportation, logistics and supply chain management industries, to be deployed on a multitude of defense, intelligence and homeland security programs.

The thrust of the original CRADA focused on advanced geospatial visualization. ObjectFX’s solution, SpatialFX, was enhanced to display and manage a variety of NGA products, including vector maps, raster maps, raster imagery, and elevation data. In addition, the software was extended to dynamically render the full range of MIL-STD 2525B symbology.

Over time, the CRADA evolved to address Business Intelligence (BI) challenges involving large quantities of dynamic geospatial data. This resulted in the development of ObjectFX’s spatio-temporal rules engine, SpatialRules. SpatialRules is a software Complex Event Processor (CEP) for geospatial data that allows multiple real-time information streams to be compared, analyzed and linked based on their time and location attributes. This analysis can be done either as it is collected or in a forensic setting, to monitor and track how objects interact over time and to detect critical patterns and events.

Ms. Vonna Heaton, NGA’s Innovision Director, presented ObjectFX with the award “Outstanding Contribution in the NGA CRADA Program.” The award recognized outstanding advancement of the technology and emphasized the operational impact achieved through collaboration having mission ready results.

Steve Panzer, Vice President of the Government Division at ObjectFX, thanked NGA and the multitude of NGA personnel who have worked closely with the company to make the CRADA a success. Said Panzer, “The challenge of taking advanced R&D and making it suitable for deployment on major government programs can be daunting, especially when crossing the chasm of multiple agencies. The NGA CRADA enabled the technology transfer of SpatialRules into a mission critical program for enterprise alerting”.

In recognition of this successful example of a Government/Industry partnership, NGA has signed a 5 year follow-on CRADA contract with ObjectFX, called “Advanced Spatiotemporal Tools for Dynamic Data Analysis”, which will extend through 2015.

About ObjectFX

ObjectFX provides geospatial tools that enable organizations to leverage the full value of dynamic spatial and temporal data to gather intelligence, monitor and improve operations, and respond more quickly to changing conditions. ObjectFX’s SpatialRules® is a Complex Event Processor (CEP) for geospatial data that tracks moving objects or real-time events, and triggers notifications based on user-defined rules. SpatialRules provides advanced analytic capabilities including complex geofencing, track creation/monitoring and cluster analysis. SpatialRules is ideally suited for enhancing Multi-INT data fusion applications. ObjectFX’s SpatialFX® is a Web 2.0 geospatial visualization toolkit for deploying highly dynamic geospatial applications. As an OGC WMS server, SpatialFX can display large quantities of geospatial data in a web browser to support defense, intelligence, homeland security and logistics activities. ObjectFX software is deployed in a broad range of industries in which location and timing play critical roles. This includes transportation, supply chain and field force management, homeland security, national defense and intelligence gathering.

Published in GeoPlace August 2009

Because of their proximity to urban centers and other critical infrastructure, ports make attractive terrorist targets due to the fact that a successful attack would result in significant loss of life, structural damage and economic impact.

Protecting our ports requires constant vigilance by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and marine enforcement officers. We rely on the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and others to ensure our safety and protect our nation’s critical infrastructure.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, however, mission priorities of the USCG have shifted significantly, as critical new challenges made their way to the forefront. Traditionally, mission priorities focused on search-and-rescue operations, combating drug smuggling and preventing illegal immigration.

Dynamic Cluster Detection determines when a user-specified number of vessels are within a certain proximity at the same time.

After the terrorist attack in 2001, priorities shifted to homeland security and maritime domain awareness. Because terrorism is a constant threat, and resources are becoming more limited, new technologies are vital to enable port-security officials to make the most efficient use of existing resources to support this mission.

A Complex Challenge

Protecting U.S. borders is a daunting task, and marine enforcement officers are faced with a unique set of challenges at each individual port. Adding an extra layer to the challenge is the fact that ports weren’t designed to be secure; port systems were designed for efficiency, reliability and speed. Security was seldom an important factor.

Because no two ports are alike, a tailored security solution needs to be implemented at each and every port. Because most cargo handled within U.S. ports is immediately loaded onto railcars and truck beds, leaving the nation’s rail and highway systems directly vulnerable, enhanced security at each individual port is crucial.

A spatiotemporal rules engine filters a stream of real-time sensor-based data, identifying actionable intelligence.

Intelligence information currently is being used as an efficient means of increasing security. However, this information is gathered by an expanding number of land-based and airborne sensor platforms, providing a deluge of information that’s unmanageable without an effective way to make sense of the information and extract what’s important—identifying actionable intelligence.

In addition to the challenges created by the structure of the ports themselves, government agencies are faced with shrinking budgets, limited resources and an overwhelming amount of sensor-based information that must be sifted through to find relevant data.

The goal of sensor-based information is to identify actionable intelligence—getting critical information to the right people at the right time to best protect our nation’s ports—but there’s too much information to sift through. As technology progresses and people become more sophisticated in data collection, more sensors are used to secure ports, providing more information to sift through to find the valuable data.

Airborne sensors and land-based cameras only provide relevant information when they’re capturing the correct information—cameras may not always be pointed at something of interest, while airborne sensors can’t be everywhere at once. To efficiently use sensor and camera resources, tipping and cueing information is critical to determine where they should be tasked.

Although the number of sensors returning a steady stream of raw, unfiltered information continues to grow, the number of false-positives delivered also grows. As a result, analysts and port-security personnel spend unnecessary time and resources investigating and verifying false or unqualified leads.

New Technologies

With millions of individual containers entering U.S. ports every year, it’s almost impossible for marine enforcement officers to board and inspect every ship. Resources permitting, it would be expensive and highly inefficient to search every container, ultimately increasing the cost of many products purchased by Americans.

A spatiotemporal rules engine can track vessel-routing information, determining when two vessels are within a given proximity of each other within a specified amount of time. Using a “breadcrumb trail,” two vessels need not be in the same place at the same time to alert port-security officials.

Although a 2006 Congress mandate requires that DHS must scan 100 percent of cargo coming into U.S. ports by 2012, DHS has set forth a proposal that doesn’t incorporate a search of every container, but will focus on gathering more information about countries of origin and packaging of containers. To most efficiently use such information, the government needed a solution to filter through the floods of sensor-based data, which would enable port security to “red flag” any potential problem areas to narrow the list of targets, instead of wasting resources inspecting each individual container.

New technologies, such as a spatiotemporal rules engine, can address these challenges, saving time, money and increasing the opportunity for success. A spatiotemporal rules engine allows existing sensors and databases to condense the deluge of information into a single stream before applying customized rule layers to identify actionable intelligence.

As the name suggests, the technology uses spatial and temporal information, intelligently managing streams of real-time information to track moving objects or real-time events, triggering notifications based on an unlimited number of user-defined rules. These rules engines are compatible with any number of location-aware devices and sensors, displaying output within a designated geospatial viewer.

Although data fusion is a crucial added value from such technology, there are other, equally important capabilities enabled by a spatiotemporal rules engine. For example, ship monitoring and tracking is critical in determining whether certain vessels deviate from planned routes. It also can help pinpoint a possible cause for deviation.

Without a spatiotemporal rules engine, sensor data can be overwhelming and difficult to sift through.

If a vessel deviates, an Automatic Identification System signal from that ship can be used to track locations, enabling marine enforcement officers to determine whether that variance was due to an environmental situation, such as severe weather, or for questionable motives. If the cause of deviation is determined to be questionable, port security can flag that vessel, indicating a need for ship interception and inspection.

Defining Actionable Intelligence

Ship monitoring can be enabled by user-customized rule layers that are defined and applied based on needed information and information being tracked. Routing information, travel patterns and cluster detection all are determined by the application of rule layers, providing port security analysts with the information needed to target high-interest vessels.

After being applied to a spatiotemporal rules engine, sensor data can enable port security officials to more efficiently track high-interest vessels and other important information.

Vessels arriving from certain ports or carrying certain types of material or personnel included on a given “watch list” may be marked as “high-interest vessels.” Rules applied to track routing information can focus on specific points of origin or stops along the way; ships that originate from ports at higher-risk countries or ships that stop at those ports along the way are more closely watched, narrowing the list of vessels that need to be monitored.

The “breadcrumb trail” is another method of tracking travel patterns that’s used to narrow the list of suspect vessels. Using this method, travel patterns of individual vessels can be tracked and compared to travel patterns of other vessels, especially those of high interest. Using this rule layer, the paths of the two vessels need not cross simultaneously—a spatiotemporal rules engine can use the function to determine whether two ships were in the same vicinity within a given amount of time, enabling the transfer of illegal contraband (e.g., arms, people, drugs, potential weapons of mass destruction, etc.) to an otherwise inconspicuous ship.

Dynamic Cluster Detection is another method used to monitor travel patterns of high-interest vessels that may be transferring illegal contraband onto other ships. The number of vessels that make up a cluster is customized by users and applied. After a given number of ships are within a given proximity at the same time, an incident alert is distributed, marking those vessels to be searched and monitored.

Spatiotemporal rules engines have proven to be especially useful when it comes to data fusion, ship monitoring and tracking, and incident response. Spatiotemporal rules engines also can help port-security officials with other critical, yet more traditional challenges, such as search-and-rescue missions and illegal immigration. Although large vessels tend to be the focus for such rules engines, they also have the ability to track foreign fishing boats and other small vessels that may have illegally entered U.S. territory to export immigrants or illegally fish within a U.S. commerce zone.

As the threat of terrorism at vulnerable U.S. ports continues to expand, and increased mission requirements are being levied on U.S. port-security officials, the use of sensors and new technology, such as a spatiotemporal rules engine, helps the government do more with less, better protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure by focusing on its ports.

The UICDS project successfully conducted a demonstration of the prototype reference implementation of the national architecture for emergency information sharing. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) hosted the demonstration at the Virginia Emergency Operations Center (VEOC) in Richmond on April 29. The UICDS prototype implementation integrated information from 23 commercial, government and academic technology provider applications, demonstrating how this information is shared among applications and the jurisdictions they serve. The demonstration included six incident vignettes occurring in a simulated East Coast storm, with each vignette showing information sharing among five to seven applications currently in use by police, fire, emergency medical, emergency management, and other response organizations.

ObjectFX solutions served as the lead technology in one of the six incident vignettes, which successfully demonstrated the value of sensor integration through advanced spatiotemporal management of video sensors, based on ObjectFX SpatialRules, showing how multimedia assets can be integrated with incident monitoring and management. ObjectFX solutions also provided the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Observation Service (SOS) for its demonstration. SOS is an approved OGC standard defining a web service interface for the discovery and retrieval of real time or archived data produced by a variety of sensors. This standard enables SpatialRules to provide a service that responds to UICDS client requests for observation access to a given sensor.

Within the demonstration, information sharing, as provided by UICDS, increased the value of the shared information and improved the effectiveness of incident management. Inherent in the shared information and various systems integrated through UICDS is location information. Nick Thomey, CEO of ObjectFX, noted, “ObjectFX SpatialRules exploits this location information to produce spatiotemporal data integration and awareness within the UICDS system, enabling the system to automatically detect and act upon real-time location data to better manage the incidents under its control. This capability was integral in the demonstration’s ability to deliver on its mission.”

Chip Mahoney, the SAIC Project Manager for UICDS, stated, “The UICDS prototype demonstration illustrated how a wide variety of applications can share information through a diverse set of interfaces, data formats and networks using non-proprietary, open standards. From long-standing applications like computer-aided dispatch and asset management to more recent video surveillance and detection technologies to new situational awareness tools, the UICDS Architecture Specification helps accommodate the information exchanges emergency managers and responders need to save lives, protect property, and minimize economic loss.”

James W. Morentz, Ph.D., Director of UICDS Outreach, said, “Despite all the efforts devoted to data interoperability in recent years, the 23 technology providers represented in the demonstration came to the UICDS program with virtually no instances of sharing data with each other. Using the software development kit for the UICDS middleware and the National Information Exchange Model data exchange formats, these “first adopter” technology providers successfully demonstrated nearly one hundred real-time information exchanges. This demonstration points the way to a successful continuation of this government-sponsored, technology provider-driven information sharing across the full range of prevention, protection, response and recovery.”

UICDS is a middleware foundation that enables commercial and government incident management technologies to share information and support decisions for the National Response Framework and National Incident Management to prevent, protect, respond, and recover from natural, technological, and terrorist events.

About ObjectFX

ObjectFX provides flexible, scalable enterprise solutions that support missions where analysis and visualization of location and timing are critical. The firm’s geospatial platform solutions enable organizations to leverage the full value of dynamic spatial and temporal data to gather intelligence, monitor and improve operations, and respond more quickly to changing conditions. Working closely with our customers in the Intelligence Community, Defense, and Homeland Security, ObjectFX solutions deliver customizable, responsive solutions fusing Intelligence from multiple sources to support mission planning, situational awareness and battlefield visualizations.

NGA isn’t the only agency that directly benefits from its CRADAs. Technology developed under NGA CRADAs has been incorporated in major procurements. A 1999 CRADA with geospatial intelligence-tool developer ObjectFX, which focused on displaying situational awareness and common-operating picture data, led to wide applications, according to Steve Panzer, vice president of ObjectFX’s government division.

Our product was really built for the commercial industry, but NGA saw the value of moving our technology into an area where they could make better use of it both for the intelligence community and the defense community,” Panzer said.

NGA selected ObjectFX’s SpatialFX product for its Image Exploitation Support System, a geospatial database of imagery and other data. The Army also included the software in its All Source Analysis System and its Tactical Exploitation System, which automate the analysis of intelligence from satellites and airborne sensors.

“I don’t think we would have been involved in any of those if we hadn’t done the work under the CRADA initially to be able to handle the NGA formats,” Panzer said.

ObjectFX’s current CRADA research has also found applications elsewhere in the intelligence community. The research, which Walls characterizes as “more exploratory,” is focused on processing geospatial intelligence information based on a set of spatial-temporal rules — looking at when events and objects happen within a defined area and time frame, and analyzing deviations from “normal” activities.

“We’re looking at merging classified and unclassified, commercial and non-commercial data types,” Walls said. “And they’re not just imagery, they may be signals intelligence, shipping data, tracking data — anything we can pin to a point on the earth at a specific time and look at trends over time. And then from that you can ratchet up the sophistication of analysis tools so that you can develop rules, for instance, that say this is what happens under a normal situations, and if anything happens that’s not normal or outside these rules let me know, and that cues the analyst to take a closer look.”

Panzer said that the work done with the spatial-temporal rules engine at NGA, using high volumes of classified data feeds, led directly to another intelligence agency acquiring the technology for a classified program. He said other members of the intelligence community “understood that this product had been tested on classified data sets on very large numbers [and] it had many other potential uses.” As a result of that additional work, ObjectFX has increased the capacity of its commercially available rules engine so that it can track millions of objects and events. “That sort of scalability was a very key test under the CRADA,” Panzer said.

Full Article

As sensory information becomes more advanced, the government is faced with a continuous and ever-expanding stream of real-time information from which it collects intelligence in support of national security. Thousands of small, seemingly insignificant events happen every day. ObjectFX has created a solution that fits within Complex Event Processing. CEP helps to automate incident detection and is enabling applications in government to streamline processes, while more quickly identifying what’s important. Geospatial analysts, working toward the same goal of most efficiently identifying actionable intelligence, are turning to Geospatial Event Processing to correlate space- and time-relevant events to determine when a significant event has occurred. Editor in Chief Joe Francica posed some questions to Steve Panzer, the vice president of ObjectFX’s Government Division.

Read the full story

Published in Military Geospatial Technology, April 2009

When implemented well, public-private partnerships bring the best of both worlds together. A cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA), in which private enterprise provides innovative technology for public sector review, analysis, support and guidance, is an excellent example of a public-private partnership that works. This partnership leverages resources and knowledge from the private sector, while providing guidance from the public sector and insight into the specific needs of individual government agencies.

A CRADA offers both parties the opportunity to share technical expertise, ideas and information in a protected environment. Originally authorized in 1986 as a means of expanding technology transfer between federal laboratories and the private sector, the CRADA program ultimately strives to advance science and technology that not only meets government objectives but also has viability in other potential commercial applications.

The candid interactions that are nurtured through a CRADA bring both public enterprises and private companies closer together for a mutual goal—delivering state-of-the-art technology solutions that solve real mission-critical problems. Now more than ever, partnerships that leverage resources and stretch research budgets are critical to the government in meeting the needs of its citizens and securing public confidence. As our country continues to face economic tough times, the government is expected to do more with less, and get it right the first time.

By establishing a CRADA, government works closely with the private sector to ensure custom requirements and features of individual government agencies are built into products, more efficiently meeting the needs of that government agency while reducing costs and maximizing resources.

For example, one of the key problems facing the intelligence community is the constantly increasing need for skilled analysts, an ever-expanding amount of intelligence data, and the urgency to sift through these mounds of data to find actionable intelligence quickly. As senior analysts retire, there are fewer seasoned analysts to make sense of the deluge of information, so important data might be lost or overlooked, and critical trends are not identified. As junior analysts continually take the reins from senior analysts, it becomes even more crucial that procedures are captured and standardized, condensing routine intellectual labor so more time can be spent identifying actionable intelligence.

Through a CRADA with geospatial solutions provider ObjectFX, the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency (NGA) is moving to quickly and efficiently address this challenge by enhancing ObjectFX’s offerings and defining and fine-tuning the features required for its newest product, a spatiotemporal rules engine, designed with input through the CRADA to specifically address real-world intelligence community use cases and scenarios.

Working with NGA via a CRADA initially signed in 1999, ObjectFX has been providing its Java-based geospatial software platform, which enables the integration into enterprise applications of location-based services, like vehicle routing and address geocoding, for organizations throughout civilian, intelligence and defense agencies. In response to its customers’ requests and needs, ObjectFX added support for geospatial data types, like raster/vector maps and high resolution imagery specific to the intelligence community, as well as military standard 2525B symbology to its suite of geospatial solutions. When the intelligence community expressed the need for a spatiotemporal rules capability, SpatialRules was born.

SpatialRules, a product of this agreement, is a spatiotemporal rules engine that manages a flood of real-time sensor-based information, enabling analysts to make better use of their time by more quickly and efficiently identifying actionable intelligence— getting the right information to the right people at the right time. A spatiotemporal rules engine is a software component for analyzing spatial and temporal conditions against a set of rules, in this instance scanning specific areas of interest for suspicious activity based on proximity, density, and routing and tracking information.

Before implementing this rules engine, intelligence analysts spent a significant amount of time retrieving data, studying movement patterns on a geospatial display, and manually detecting events for further investigation. A spatiotemporal rules engine significantly reduces the manual labor by automating the monitoring process, enabling geospatial event processing in real time. Increased accuracy and efficiency of monitoring provides more time for analysis of high interest objects or events, exponentially increasing the probability that critical information will reach its destination in time to impact a critical decision.

Through this ongoing partnership, NGA and the rest of the intelligence community are benefiting from direct, hands-on access to leading COTS tools and technologies that can be modified or created to meet custom intelligence needs and requirements.

Infinitely renewable, these collaborative, cooperative and mutually beneficial partnerships utilize known government providers with forward-thinking and innovative technologies to solve government problems at minimal cost. By combining resources like facilities, equipment, expertise and personnel, the government can meet its ultimate goal of doing more with less, stretching research budgets while consuming fewer resources.

Private Benefits

The CRADA provides equal opportunity to all private sector companies, enabling any company with common research and development goals to enter into a CRADA agreement with a government agency. As the relationship is mutually beneficial, the private company also realizes benefits from the partnership. Aside from the fact that private companies are given insight into specific needs of government agencies (within defined security clearance boundaries), they are also able to access agency data, data standards and processes within the designated facility, running it through their technology to enable a better understanding of specific use cases and scenarios.

Companies gain an added benefit of acquiring more depth of knowledge regarding the government agencies they serve, expanding that company’s expertise and value with other government agencies moving forward. Proprietary rights and ideas of the private company are also protected. In signing this agreement, all parties agree to keep research results confidential until published or commercialized, and the private research partner typically takes title to any inventions.

In order to most efficiently meet the needs of government agencies and their customer bases, public-private partnerships are gaining momentum. The government’s demands for more advanced technological innovations while balancing smaller budgets can be met through the CRADA, truly a mutually beneficial relationship between a federal agency and a private company. While the country continues to face economic hardship, partnering with the private sector not only provides more quickly commercialized technology that directly addresses the needs of individual government agencies, but by optimizing resources, it also stretches the research and development budget.