Back in the day, intelligence gathering and analysis were big challenges for governments to protect their national interests and make sound decisions for the safe future of their states. This required a hefty investment of resources like satellites and drones. However, in this modern world, investing in such pieces of technology is not only convenient but also economical. Moreover, premium quality video and audio surveillance tools have been transformed into portable devices and can be shopped through an online spy shop even by an ordinary person.
Therefore, this article will discuss the impact of technology in revolutionizing intelligence gathering and analysis. Read on!
The way data is collected, processed, stored, and analyzed for intelligence purposes has been made a cinch with open-source intelligence. It basically allows you to get your hands on publicly available information such as social media, internet databases, newspapers, public companies reports, television, etc.
Government analysts help the state by gathering information from different sources and curating reports and charts to make decisions regarding the current situation in their country and even predict future behavior to take a reasonable course of action ahead of time.
Considering the fact that there’s a plethora of information available on the internet and there’s always uncertainty regarding the integrity of information, machine learning has also overcome this issue.
Machine learning comes under the umbrella term of artificial intelligence, and it works in the same way as humans solve problems.
Integrating open-source intelligence with machine learning has provided analysts with the convenience of sifting through an ocean of information available on the internet and identifying trends in the data collected to confirm its credibility and transparency.
This way, it’s easier to evaluate the probability of a certain outcome. Of course, machine learning requires sufficient input of data to perform its best.
With unlimited data being collected and processed, it’s essential for the entire intelligence team and even different departments to collectively analyze it and take immediate action for the betterment of the state.
Hence, technological innovations have made it possible for all the personnel to work on a piece of information without having to be physically present at once. Various software lets you access real-time data, stay up to date with developments and provide constructive analysis.
Although advancement in technology has significantly benefited almost every sector of an economy, it has also paved the way for cybercriminals and hackers to misuse confidential and sensitive information, which can otherwise pose a threat to national security.
Therefore, blockchain technology allows you to record data and information while making it almost impossible for cyber perpetrators to alter or hack the system.
Now you may ask, how does it help intelligence gathering and analysis?
Whenever analysts or data scientists search for data and store it for analysis down the line, they use blockchain-based tools to prevent anyone from changing the collected data and make sure the data is as transparent as possible for effective evaluation.
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Last Friday, a high-level delegation from the United Nations Foundation (UNF), including staff members from U.S. Congressional offices, visited Artel Electronics LLC (Artel), Central Asia’s largest home appliance and electronics manufacturer. Artel is a recent full participant of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and is the only private sector company in Uzbekistan to host the delegation.
The UNF Congressional Learning Trip to Uzbekistan, held from 11th to 16th April 2022, was designed to demonstrate the work of the United Nations in Uzbekistan, as well as highlight the country’s development needs and substantial recent progress. The delegation conducted multiple high-level meetings with Government ministers, cultural institutions, and NGOs.
During the visit, the participants toured Artel’s Rohat manufacturing plant and witnessed the production of semi-automatic washing machines, refrigerators and thermoplastics. The group also saw Artel’s innovations in sustainable technology at its R&D facility, as well as one of the company’s 34 service centres.
Peter Yeo, Vice President of the UN Foundation, said: “We enjoyed our tour of Artel and learning more about how Artel and the UN office in Uzbekistan are partnering to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It will take all of us working together—governments, the private sector, and civil society—to create the progress the world needs.”
Bektemir Murodov, Chief Financial Officer, Artel, said: “It is a real privilege to host the United Nations Foundation Congressional Learning Trip to Uzbekistan today. As a recent signatory of the UNGC we are committed to championing the Sustainable Development Goals, not only within our operations, but for the benefit of our 10,000 employees and customer base. The private sector has a responsibility to advance these principles and drive forward our country’s sustainable development.
At Artel, we are constantly striving to find ways to improve our ESG position. We are grateful for our partnership with the UN and others who provide us with the opportunity to learn from international best practice.”
In 2021, Artel became one of Uzbekistan’s first companies to become a full participant in the UN Global Compact. The company commits to uphold and promote labour standards, sustainability and human rights.
Engaging with and learning from international partners is a key part of Artel’s forward looking ESG strategy. Artel is improving the efficiency of its products, whilst finding other ways to mitigate climate chance, most recently through planting over 4,000 trees in the national “Yashil Makon” initiative. Furthermore, Artel is working to align with international standards of corporate governance as part of the company’s ongoing transformation process, including through the introduction of a professional supervisory board.
Earlier on in the week, Artel’s Head of Press Service Kamola Sobirova also participated in a panel discussion with the delegation at Westminster University in Tashkent on how to champion gender equality in the workplace. On women’s rights, the company is a leading promoter of the UN campaign on 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and is implementing several initiatives both internally and externally to drive forward gender equality.
Digital twin technologies are the key to improving urban life and enabling more resilient cities, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum and China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT). The partnership will also serve to address unexpected challenges of data quality and security, related to the digital model of the physical world.
The new report, Digital Twin Cities: Framework and Global Practices, is the first output in a multi-year collaboration that brings together public and private sector stakeholders to accelerate the development and use of digital twin technologies in cities. The report, which draws on case studies from around the world, will also be complemented by workshops to build capacity and expertise around this suite of new digital tools and applications.
“This initiative comes at a critical time as cities across the globe are grappling with social, political and economic instability and increased demands for public services,” said Jeff Merritt, Head of Urban Transformation, World Economic Forum. “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of data-driven operations to enable more resilient and future-ready cities while also exposing the increased governance and security challenges that come with digitalization.”
“At present, the digital twin city is moving from the concept stage to the implementation stage,” said Xiaohui Yu, President, China Academy of Information and Communication Technology. “Combining previous research in the field with practical digital twin city examples worldwide, the report summarizes typical cases around the world, and has reference value for city managers as well as entrepreneurs and investors who actively embrace digital twin technology. The technology provides a feasible pathway for more inclusive and sustainable cities.”
“The core promise of digital twin cities is that they will help us to understand complex urban systems better and enable us to intervene more effectively,” said Mark Enzer, Chief Technical Officer, Mott MacDonald. “This is exactly what we need if we are to tackle the great systemic challenges of our age and enable people and nature to flourish together for generations.”
“The digital twin still faces significant challenges, and China is still in the early stages of exploration, said Hequan Wu, Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering. “Existing challenges include the fact that technology is still in development, a lack of standardization of platform models, the need to readapt the city’s organizational structure and management system, and data security and privacy protection risks.”
“With several years of lessons learned and dozens of projects around the world, the time to experiment with “smart cities” is now behind us,” said Simon Huffeteau, Vice President, Infrastructure & Cities Strategy, Dassault System. “This joint report is timely and provides guidance and best practices for defining a virtual twin strategy and putting in place a plan. It will allow cities and businesses to invent and create this new public service: providing a purpose-driven virtual twin of a city or a region to all stakeholders.”
To help unlock the potential of digital twin technologies, the partnership between the World Economic Forum and CAICT have identified five areas of focus, which will be refined in the next two reports: 1. Guarantee date quality and security, 2. Lower the technical threshold for adoption, 3. Engage in innovation, 4. Refine industrial standards, 5. Develop business models.
On 25 July 2000, a Concorde jet crashed upon take-off in Paris, killing 113 people. The cause of the accident was later identified as a metal strip on the runway that had fallen off another plane. When the jet ran over it, its tyre burst and shredded pieces caused a fuel tank to rupture, resulting in a devastating fire.
Almost a decade later, in January 2009, a US Airways flight struck a flock of geese shortly after take-off in New York City, losing engine power. Fortunately, there were no deaths this time as fast-acting pilot Chesley Sullenberger managed to ditch the plane safely in the Hudson River.
Then, in December 2018, a drone scare at London’s Gatwick airport closed the runway for 33 hours, causing long delays that cost airlines many millions of euros.
Three incidents with quite different causes – a foreign object on the runway, birds and a drone – but with a high cost in lives, money or both.
Yet these are just some of the highest-profile air incidents, with smaller-scale ones more common. Foreign object debris (FOD) on runways and bird strikes, for example, cost the airline industry billions of euros annually and create lengthy delays for passengers.
In the 10 years before Covid-19 hit, air passenger numbers were skyrocketing. Despite the setbacks arising from the pandemic, the only way is up as air travel returns and airports get busier.
‘If the number of departures increases, then the amount of foreign object debris being spilled will also increase,’ said Torsten Leth Elmkjær, CEO and founder of Nordic Radar Solutions in Aarhus, Denmark. ‘It is important that you don’t have to hold the entire airport on standby because somebody is looking for FOD.’
Even very small objects can cause significant damage to aircraft moving at high speeds, with screws, bolts and maintenance tools classified as FOD. Added to that is the relatively recent rise in threat from drones.
Elmkjær’s company is developing a new radar system to deal with the multiple threats. Its FODDBASA project has aimed at real-time identification of hazardous objects within a 10-kilometre radius of runways.
Airports often rely on vehicle patrols for runway inspections, but these take time and may not spot everything. Unfortunately, Elmkjær said, the use of radar-based options at airports has been limited by their high cost compared to their feature set, including the use of separate systems for FOD and birds. On top of that, there is now a need to take drones into account.
Nordic Radar Solutions has tried to tackle this with its FODDBASA technology by creating an integrated system to address all three issues at once to help improve cost-effectiveness while using fewer radars per airport. ‘I think we have rather unique radar technology,’ said Elmkjær. ‘The three-in-one system is our unique selling point.’
The radars that his company has been developing operate in a higher frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum than that of some other systems, with the aim of detecting objects smaller than 1 centimetre. Use of this so-called Ka-band spectrum at about 35 gigahertz (GHz), is combined with highly sensitive antennas to detect weak signals from far away.
However, while Elmkjær believes that the initial project was 70% successful, his team found that the radar frequency was not high enough for the required performance levels.
But he is positive it will be possible to achieve the right performance with some adjustment. Nordic Radar Solutions has already developed a system that operates at 92 to 98 GHz, which now needs to go through further testing. ‘I have a good feeling that we will soon turn this into a commercial product,’ said Elmkjær.
Much of the potential, he believes, comes from Asia and the Middle East, where many airports are planned and legacy systems are not already in place. ‘In Asia and the Middle East, they’re planning new airports and they will have the newest technology available,’ said Elmkjær. ‘It’s easier to install these kinds of systems when you plan airports.’
Established locations such as Copenhagen Airport have also shown interest.
In addition, Nordic Radar Solutions will offer the systems separately. ‘Some are happy to enter just with a FOD-only system, but with the option to purchase the add-ons necessary to have the full three-in-one solution.’ Others, such as military airports in Denmark and Belgium, are more interested in systems for drone detection.
In the end, such radar systems have big benefits when considering the alternative of not having them, said Elmkjær. ‘These systems are affordable when compared to the amount of damage that can occur if you don’t detect that something bad might happen,’ he said.
On board aircraft, certain features need to be refined and enhanced for both safety and operational benefits as aviation technology advances. This includes windows capable of handling bird strikes at faster speeds and offering anti-icing and anti-fogging functions.
The Wimper project has focused on the development of windshields and window coatings. They are intended for use in state-of-the-art helicopter-type aircraft developed by Airbus as part of the EU-funded Clean Sky 2 project, which aims to develop cleaner air transport technologies for a greener economy.
The Racer, a demonstrator aircraft reportedly on course to make its maiden flight later this year, is intended to cruise at more than 400 kilometres per hour – compared to an average helicopter’s top speed of about 260 kilometres per hour.
The aim is to optimise trade-off between speed, cost-efficiency and performance, while demonstrating the advantage of high speed for missions such as emergency medical and rescue services.
Matthias Tretter, head of R&D at KRD Sicherheitstechnik in Geesthacht, Germany, which makes products under the Kasiglas brand and led the Wimper project, explained that his company has manufactured aircraft windows for some years using impact-resistant polycarbonate materials that work fine on lower-speed helicopters. However, the Racer made it necessary to upgrade the windows for higher-speed situations.
The structure of the windows did not require much modification other than some changes in thickness. The main alterations were to the window coatings, said Tretter. For this, his team used a lightweight glaze, while gluing techniques were harnessed to avoid the use of heavier screws that also create holes in the windows.
‘We have shown that we can resist bird strikes with this very thin thickness of polycarbonate,’ he said. ‘You have this polycarbonate window with the bird-strike resistance and on top you have functional coatings for abrasion resistance.’
Testing was performed with ‘jelly’ birds made from gelatine, with the windows able to withstand strikes at high speeds, said Tretter.
Not only was that successful, he said, but KRD also managed to add cutting-edge anti-fog and anti-ice capabilities on the inside and outside of the windows, creating a significant advantage for helicopters.
The big advantage of using such coatings is that functions can be added to windows without reducing their transparency. It also offers the potential to reduce the need for heating and air-conditioning systems, giving scope to cut the weight and energy consumption of future flights.
These functions all promise to lead to better, safer and more efficient flight, said Tretter.
‘If you don’t have ice and you therefore don’t need heating for the window, you can fly off faster,’ he added.
The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.
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