HERNDON, Va., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The same video management technology that helps sports broadcasters assemble the day's top highlights will soon help military commanders track the action on the battlefield. The U.S. Joint Forces Command awarded a Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) team a $29 million contract for Valiant Angel, a new system that will apply highly advanced broadcasting technologies to help commanders collect, manage, process, exploit and disseminate full-motion video.
Under the contract, a team comprised of Lockheed Martin, Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS) and NetApp will design and integrate a new system to manage the video processing, exploitation and dissemination cycle. The system will give commanders better visibility into the vast amounts of real-time and archived video, which is collected from manned and unmanned aircraft and ground-based sensors.
"Video is a powerful intelligence tool, but today there is so much being collected, it's difficult for troops and analysts to sort through the mountains of available data in search of the specific clip they need to make a decision," said Dan Rice, Lockheed Martin Vice President for Spatial Solutions. "With Valiant Angel, commanders will be able to quickly find the video they need, package it into an actionable intelligence report, and share it securely with the front-line troops who need it. Valiant Angel will help make video an even more decisive advantage for our forces in virtually any scenario."
Valiant Angel will deliver a number of new capabilities to the warfighter. The system will:
*Collect and store incoming video streams from a variety of sensors in a secure, networked database.
*Categorize and manage videos by keyword, geographic region or other items of interest. For instance, users looking for a red pickup truck on 10(th) Street can search Valiant Angel's library for any video footage matching that description and in that location, or set up alerts to tell them when new clips are posted to the network.
*Fuse intelligence data from multiple sources into incoming video streams. For example, if two users are discussing a video over instant messenger, Valiant Angel will embed that chat history directly in the video stream, so other users can follow exactly what was discussed to glean important intelligence.
"The military deals with many of the same challenges as commercial broadcasters when it comes to collecting, managing, analyzing and distributing critical rich media content," said Tim Thorsteinson, President, Harris Broadcast Communications. "Applying solutions and lessons learned from the digital transition that has already taken place in the broadcast industry is allowing our military to use the same proven, Harris COTS components to automate the analysis of intelligence information -- making the process faster, less expensive and more robust."
The Valiant Angel system will incorporate tools and technologies from two existing systems: Lockheed Martin's Audacity(TM) video analysis system, and Harris Corporation's Full-Motion Video Asset Management Engine, or FAME(TM). The two companies previously integrated the tools together under a collaborative research and development agreement, announced in April. NetApp will integrate their Data ONTAP high-capacity storage technology with the Valiant Angel system. Data ONTAP is a flexible, high-performance storage architecture that can scale to 24 servers with a total of 14 petabytes of capacity.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.
Harris is an international communications and information technology company serving government and commercial markets in more than 150 countries. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has approximately $5 billion of annual revenue and more than 15,000 employees -- including nearly 7,000 engineers and scientists. Harris is dedicated to developing best-in-class assured communications((R)) products, systems, and services. Additional information about Harris Corporation is available at www.harris.com.
For additional information, visit our website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
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