Morgantown, WV, 3/16/2017 – NextGen Federal Systems, an innovative information technology small business, has recently been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract by US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Under this contract, NextGen will develop an IMPACT system that provides innovative/revolutionary way of dynamically generating/assessing weather constraints on military operations and incorporates the weather risk management advice into active, agile decision support applications within high tempo, dynamic environments.
The IMPACT system is designed to analyze weather forecasts and use data to determine effects on planned military missions and routes. “By applying ‘Big Data’ techniques, the IMPACT technology is able to analyze ALL the weather for ALL the missions ALL the time,” said Jeremy Loomis, Chief Software Architect at NextGen. IMPACT approaches the problem of high dimensionality and scalability by applying On Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) On Hadoop (OOH) approach to build weather data cube that stores weather forecast data at multiple resolutions using aggregate measures. The mission constraints to be evaluated are determined by selecting thresholds from the Common Rules Database and other sources based on planned operational activities. The resultant actionable advice is provided directly to the Decision Support Applications.
Historically, the inclusion of weather advice within ongoing planning has relied largely on a time-consuming process of ‘mental fusion’ of various information sources from disconnected systems. The OLAP techniques are routinely used by companies that have very large data holdings that are used to make decisions – such as credit card companies, insurance companies, and transportation companies. The successful approaches used by these industries will be adapted by IMPACT to support planning and operations by the Military.
The SBIR program is a highly competitive program aimed at encouraging domestic small businesses to engage in federal research and development efforts that lead to development of new technology or process that has potential commercialized.
Loomis will serve as the Principal Investigator for this project, leading a team of both local and remote engineers. “During this effort, we will perform software engineering to mature previous research code and prepare it for transition to an Air Force program for eventual use in operations,” said Loomis.
Weather’s unpredictability has caused innumerable effects on military plans and operations. Often, missions are delayed or even canceled because of the unknown ramifications weather can cause. Utilizing this IMPACT system, military operatives will be able to accurately determine effects of forecasts and plan for missions without the volatility weather is known for.
