TEC and ESRI collaborate on geospatial research and development

10 Oct 08 -- Alexandria, Va. -- ERDC-TEC and the Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. (ESRI) signed a cooperative research and development agreement in August to collaborate on the design and construction of innovative prototypes demonstrating the next generation of geospatial technology in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Battle Command applications.  This core research will influence the use of geospatial technology in combat systems throughout the DoD, contributing significantly to the design of the next generation of geospatial capability in command and control applications.

“TEC's ability to provide the warfighter with a superior knowledge of today’s complex and ever-changing operational environment depends, in part, on a productive marriage of our geospatial tools, talent, and military geospatial business logic with complementary commercial geospatial information technology,” said Bob Burkhardt, TEC director and Army Geospatial Information Officer.  “Our partnership with ESRI allows us access to powerful software, databases, systems, and architectural concepts critical to our continued success.”

“ESRI has enjoyed many years of successful collaboration with TEC,” said Jack Dangermond, ESRI president.  “We look forward to working with TEC to design these pioneering prototypes that will support a new generation of defense geospatial capability.”

TEC and ESRI, a world-leading technology firm for geographic information systems, will combine their skills and resources to design and develop prototypes of new Battle Command data management and decision support tools.  Areas of joint research include:

• Design of mobile geospatial applications that take advantage of server technology for data updates and synchronization
• Preparation of image services for ArcGIS Server that exploit BuckEye imagery
• Design the architecture and create several advanced technology defense prototypes that facilitate the operation of command and control systems with geospatially-aware battlefield objects, improve server technology that provides tactical situation awareness, and facilitate the use of geospatial technology in the analysis of human intelligence.

Both organizations will also attend technical work groups and exchange meetings to communicate the results of the research and engineering of the Battle Command geospatial technology developed under this agreement to other defense and intelligence agencies.