Ground Guidance software to be integrated into FalconView

US warfighters will have enhanced situational awareness following the award of a contract to Primordial for its Ground Guidance software. The software will be integrated into FalconView, the critical military system currently installed on more than 14,000 government-issued laptops.

The resulting system will provide soldiers with interactive route planning capabilities within FalconView, allowing them to rapidly plan fast and concealed routes, avoid chokepoints, and identify potential ambush locations.

As well as providing soldiers with the capability to plan efficient and safe routes to and from mission objectives, it will also allow them to account for other variables such as load, energy expenditure, enemy movement, and line of sight exposure.

Lt Col Rodney Briggman, US Army Product Manager, said: ‘Ground Guidance's automated route planning and terrain analysis features will accelerate mission planning and enable soldiers to evaluate courses of action more thoroughly.’

Primordial began the integration and development effort in December 2012. The one-year contract includes integrating Ground Guidance capability into FalconView, generating routable maps to facilitate testing, and updating the software based on soldier feedback resulting from three user juries.

In March, Primordial released a beta version of its FalconView plug-in. This was followed by testing of the plug-in planning missions, with soldiers providing feedback on Ground Guidance's features and verifying the accuracy of route metrics such as distance, duration, energy expenditure, calories burned, and exhaustion.

Randy Milbert, president, Primordial, said: ‘Ground Guidance is a unique mission planning tool that enables soldiers on the ground to rapidly plan routes and analyse terrain. There is no need for complex GIS software or expertise. This makes small combat teams more autonomous, nimble, and adaptable and enables them to quickly respond to changing battlefield conditions.’

The $590,365 contract was awarded through the Defense Acquisition Challenge. Enhancements under the contract include advanced planning tools such as recommending avenues of approach, suggesting halt locations, avoiding historic improvised explosive device/significant activity locations, recommending equipment, and warning of ambush locations.