{"id":146231,"date":"2024-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=146231"},"modified":"2024-04-09T20:28:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T20:28:15","slug":"national-guard-employs-ai-to-battle-wildfires-improve-disaster-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=146231","title":{"rendered":"National Guard employs AI to battle wildfires, improve disaster response"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Kenneth C. McNeill, a senior executive service member and the chief information officer of the National Guard Bureau, speaks to Project Theia officials and other interested parties during a discussion at the Pentagon Feb., 2, 2023. Named after the Greek goddess of sight, Theia centralizes video data, then applies Artificial Intelligence solutions to increase situational awareness among those responding to natural or man-made disasters.
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ARLINGTON, Va. \u2014 Inside the bustling confines of an operations center, National Guard members quickly assemble information from multiple sources, piecing together the \u201cbig picture\u201d from ground and air personnel as they fight a devastating wildfire threatening lives and property.<\/p>\n

As the day progresses, their report \u2014 meant to be a timely representation of the situation \u2014 makes its way up the ladder, subjected to revisions and interpretations at every level.<\/p>\n

By the time the information reaches key decision makers, however, the realities on the ground have long since evolved: homes destroyed, wildlife scattered, vegetation wasted, and most importantly, lives lost \u2014 a devastating situation exacerbated by delays in communication.<\/p>\n

For Michael Wisniewski, chief data officer with the Army National Guard\u2019s communications and computers directorate, such a scenario should never become a reality in the fast-paced world of natural disaster response.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the day, we\u2019d fly over a fire or disaster site, then come back, look at a map, make some marks on it, and then go out again and come back,\u201d said Wisniewski. \u201cI jokingly say it\u2019s also like using World War II-level communications: Somebody delivers a sheet to somebody else, and then they read it to the commander.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, those holdover processes are becoming a thing of the past as the National Guard begins to embrace artificial intelligence to help it see and understand situations quickly and employ resources faster to help save lives and property.<\/p>\n

And significantly reducing that lag in communication via AI is the aim of Project Theia \u2014 an example of how the Guard is committed to modernization, said Army Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is widely known the National Guard has been at the forefront of domestic response efforts \u2014 especially during the past few decades,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this technology, simply put, is going to take us to the next level in not only how we coordinate with local agencies, but the speed in which we can help save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Named after the Greek goddess of sight, Theia centralizes video data and then applies AI solutions to increase situational awareness among those responding to natural or human-caused disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to get all the imagery that exists in the Guard and other military assets, dump it into one platform and distribute it accordingly,\u201d said Wisniewski.<\/p>\n

The technical aspects of the project begin with taking in video streams from military air assets along with imagery and other information from ground assets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut whether it\u2019s a [UH-72A] Lakota military helicopter, MQ-9 Reaper [unmanned aerial system] or a civilian partner\u2019s assets, the process of getting that footage is entirely different for each platform,\u201d said Wisniewski.<\/p>\n

This presented the challenge, he said, of rapidly creating a common operating picture for response forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we built a system that said, \u2018Look, we\u2019ll handle the integration of all the systems, and then standardize the metadata behind the full-motion imagery coming in to the point where I can run AI algorithms on it,\u2019\u201d Wisniewski said.<\/p>\n

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\n A screenshot from a video demonstration outlines the use of Artificial Intelligence to create augmentations for full-motion video, matching geographic features to align live imagery, identify roads, key landmarks and other mission-essential data. The video demonstration served to highlight Project Theia, a recent National Guard-based initiative with the aim of greatly reducing the lag in communication by means of AI while also eliminating errors for analysts and ground-based responders to wildfires.
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The result is a web-based tool that provides clearer depictions of disaster areas, said Air Force Capt. Douglas Witherspoon, with the California Air National Guard\u2019s 163rd Attack Wing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, artificial intelligence can take data from a video and create an overlay and then allow the aircraft\u2019s video program to connect to it,\u201d he said. An overlay involves using Theia\u2019s software to render markings on top of a digital map of the disaster site.<\/p>\n

Because the overlay is constantly updating the imagery, Witherspoon added, analysts can better track fires. Whereas before, he said, those same analysts manually created overlays on a printed map or applied them to a digital one \u2014 both time-consuming tasks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technology we have now is more advanced and fully automated,\u201d Witherspoon said. \u201cUsing artificial intelligence to visually augment live video feeds with highly accurate overlays of roads, key landmarks, and other mission-critical data allows analysts to make time-sensitive decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But first-line responders and ground operators benefit too, said Army Col. Daniel Bowles, vice director for the National Guard Bureau\u2019s communications and computers directorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou still have radio and satellite communications,\u201d he said. But one of Theia\u2019s key features is \u201cgetting real-time information to the very person that\u2019s on the ground, as fast as we can make it and [enhancing] decision-making capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project also was an exercise in collaborating with academia. Through Hacking For Defense, a Defense Department-sponsored university course, students work with defense and intelligence communities to rapidly address the nation\u2019s emerging threats and security challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the National Guard, we have a warrior\u2019s mindset when it comes to fixing a problem, which is not a bad thing,\u201d said Bowles. \u201cBut then we also have the mindset of a Citizen-Soldier or Airman \u2014 meaning that we come from industry, we come from the workforce, we come from academia, and we can provide multiple viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tapping into the talent of young minds in academia, he added, is a natural fit for the Guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many different solutions that are out there and when we look outside the box, we can leverage those different things,\u201d Bowles said.<\/p>\n

Yet with the technological wonders of AI, Wisniewski said the project highlighted another accomplishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real takeaway is the transformative approach to standardizing all these different formats of videos that are coming in \u2014 so we can apply AI solutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With nearly 400 domestic response operations under its belt last year, Bowles said the Guard will continue to strategize how it can integrate AI to better support federal and local officials during disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just using new technology just to use it,\u201d said Bowles. \u201cThere\u2019s got to be a reason \u2014 an understanding on how it makes a process better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project officials expect to support the California National Guard during the upcoming wildfire season. They think the system will be fully operational by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

For more National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

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Kenneth C. McNeill, a senior executive service member and the chief information officer of the National Guard Bureau, speaks to Project Theia officials and other interested parties during a discussion at the Pentagon Feb., 2, 2023. Named after the Greek goddess of sight, Theia centralizes video data, then applies Artificial Intelligence solutions to increase situational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146233,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146236,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146231\/revisions\/146236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/146233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}