Army to have artificial intelligence-based system for threat assessment to assist in operation planning

Vijay Mohan

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Chandigarh, February 10

The Ministry of Defence has sought an artificial intelligence-based threat assessment system which should be able to integrate legacy unstructured data available in different formats and provide actionable intelligence by combining different databases through the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics techniques.

This will give a much needed fillip to the Army’s capability for intelligence generation and information correlation which is vital for operational planning and task execution at the tactical level, especially in counter-insurgency environment as well as in internal security duties and anti-terrorist roles.

“The Indian Army operations require detailed threat assessment. Currently, details of threat assessment are available neither with the security forces nor other law enforcing agencies. However restricted information is available in the form of registers, both at ‘company operating base (COB)’ level as well as with other Headquarters,” a request for proposal (RFP) issued by the ministry on February 9 states.

“Since the data is either non-existent or is recorded in legacy formats like documents and registers, no methods are available with security forces for historic correlation of incidents due to which incidents cannot be tracked or predicted,” the RFP adds.

The ministry has proposed a solution involving an artificial intelligence-based networked solution that will enable storage and analysis of data, including text, documents, images and videos, to track and predict security related incidents. the system will be developed in collaboration with the industry

The details can be linked with national databases such as UIDAI, MoRTH in order to track vehicular move, as also monitor online presence of individuals including on social media platforms and derive linkages and patterns, the document states.

Ability to import data available with other agencies within a particular army formation’s area of responsibility, enabling central collation of details from various patrols and real-time data visibility at all outstations in the command hierarchy are other required features of the system.

“The software application will be required to integrate the artificial intelligent and machine learning aspects with the existing known datasets, thereby giving the commanders and staff in chain a comprehensive and common picture regarding the operations, intelligence, including the capability to carry out data processing in terms of staff checks, query management, utilisation of business intelligence and visualisation to arrive at courses of actions and also assist to rule out the less viable options,” the RFP states.

The system will be based on desktop platforms as well as mobile applications with biometrics-based authentication of individuals to facilitate easy carriage by patrols. The system’s analysis module will monitor physical move and recognise locations, integrate different national databases, have facial and biometric identification and correlation for human movement and tracking through mobiles.

Adequate security measures and encryption will also be incorporated in the system to ensure data protection, verify user credentials, prevent unauthorised access and maintain a record of all activity.