Autonomous Geospatial Intelligence Workflows

From GCT has successfully developed and deployed a number of standards-based COTS (SCOTS) Autonomous Geospatial Intelligence Workflows (AGIWs) that execute within an enterprise geospatial intelligence Service Oriented Architecture (EGI-SOA). An AGIW essentially represents an automated business process for solving a particular geospatial intelligence problem or generated a specific geospatial intelligence product. AGIWs are designed to consume nearly any type of relevant business data, including structured (messages, database fields, products), unstructured (emails, blogs, reports), and geospatial (any data characterized in time and space) data types, and automate the characterization, exploitation, and dissemination of that data into knowledge-based products ready to be consumed by analyst and/or decision makers.

The most recognized AGIW within the geospatial intelligence community is AutoOrtho, which autonomously orthorectifies source agnostic imagery, including commercial satellite imagery (CSI), national technical means (NTM), tactical imagery, and civilian air photos. This AGIW solution has been integrated and operationally deployed within a number of IC Agencies, including NGA, as well as other organizations, such as US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is currently being reviewed for consideration by companies in Tier I Industry.

All of GCT's SCOTS AGIWs are designed to operate as components within an EGI-SOA, such as GCT's MERLIN environment. An EGI-SOA differs from a more traditional IT SOA in that an EGI-SOA incorporates an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Spatial Data Initiative (SDI) 1.0 web services tier. The MERLIN environment is designed to be sufficiently agile to reflect all of the specific requirements of a particular customer (Agency or Organization), while maintaining a standards-based interoperability baseline that enables the sharing, re-use, and effective dissemination of data and services throughout the entire geospatial intelligence community, including non-MERLIN environment instances. Thus, the specific set of AGIW workflows within an environment can be variable, reflecting the specific needs of that environment. GCT presently offers four codified AGIWs as SCOTS products available to integrate into an EGI-SOA.