Special forces pick Black Cape for platform-agnostic artificial intelligence (AI)-driven military data storage

June 6, 2022
PADSI program provides technologies for data management, data processing, and data analytics on common software user interfaces to support SOCOM.

MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – U.S. Special Operations Command data analytics experts needed platform-agnostic data storage that uses a common data standard for intelligence analysis. They found their solution from Black Cape Inc. in Arlington, Va.

Officials of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., have announced a potential $49 million Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) III contract to Black Cape for the Platform Agnostic Data Storage Infrastructure (PADSI) program.

The PADSI program provides technologies for data management, data processing, data analytics, and visualization on common user interfaces to support SOCOM.

The project seeks to develop a scalable platform-agnostic data storage system that will enable cross indexing of layered data using a common data standard for big data analytics. Standard data will enable machine-to-machine communication using artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning.

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The data repository will be able to support several tool suites to reduce or eliminate the data's reliance on specific computing systems. This will enable special forces analysts to reduce the costs of replicating data storage in different tool suites.

At full capacity, this system will enable analysts to identify and extract useful information rapidly across all available data sources to reduce the computer resources allocated to data mining.

The systems architecture will process data from several sources, identify the data type, and label information according to a common data standard for storage in the database. Key military applications will be multi-intelligence processing, and large scale AI-assisted analytics.

The project will consider reusable open-source software code for fielded systems, and then develop a prototype for use in realistic environments, including a government test bed.

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This data storage infrastructure could serve a broad range of military applications where special forces and general-purpose forces require large scale common standards data storage.

This capability also could be adopted by first responders, federal law enforcement, and for organizations that must geospatially depict big data sets in common standard format, experts say.

On this contract Black Cape will do the work at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. For more information contact Black Cape Inc. online at https://blackcape.io, or U.S. Special Operations Command at www.socom.mil.

About the Author

John Keller | Editor-in-Chief

John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.

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