| Since the late 1980s, U.S. military forces have deployed frequently overseas in peacekeeping operations involving urban areas. In addition, our military, law enforcement, and first responder communities have begun preparing for physical and cyber-based terrorism in U.S. cities. Improved visibility of threatening activities in N-dimensional space is needed for crisis management, training, and command and control purposes. This research develops a prototype Urban Information System (UIS) to aid military operations and help mitigate potential disasters in rapidly urbanizing societies. Disasters include terrorism by means of weapons of mass destruction; more general brands of military, paramilitary, and criminal activity; and acts of nature.; The information technologies examined include Remote Sensing, Digital Image Processing, Geographic Information Systems, Computer Aided Design (CAD), Virtual Reality, Modeling and Simulation (blast, chemical-biological, and other engineering models, as well as combat simulation and wargaming), Geoprofiling, Network Mapping and Link Analysis, the Global Information Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics. It is suggested that by tightly coupling these technologies and developing detailed, geo-referenced urban libraries, a UIS may be created and collaboratively shared across networks for use in a broad array of military and civil activities to preclude, minimize, or recover from disasters. Sociotechnical, educational, economic, political, and organizational barriers are examined and changes in public policy are recommended. |
