30/09/2011. The Research Group on Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology (Bisite) led by Corchado will try to get involved in two projects, "one on surveillance with unmanned remote control devices and another on systems for locating and identifying security personnel and crew members on ships".
In this event, called "Prediction and identification of maritime piracy using decision support systems based on human behavior", a hundred attendees participated, among which were subcontractors of armies belonging to consulting companies and scientists from research institutes that come from countries such as the United States or Israel.
Over the course of two weeks, decision support systems, knowledge assessment and extraction systems, sensor networks, intelligent decision-making systems, simulators, control and location systems for ships on the high seas, investigations into piracy on the high seas and its connections to import and export environments as well as the financial problems behind it have been presented. information management systems for risk identification in the field of piracy, real-time location systems, maritime terrorism, robots and unmanned vehicles and maritime surveillance on the high seas and in ports.
The objective of these forums is that computer experts can develop their ideas in the military field, in this case, applied above all to the fight against maritime piracy, such as that suffered by ships operating in the Ocean. "There is a lot of very useful technology that is not being used or is not being used properly," says the dean of the Faculty of Sciences.
"The development of these systems does not require so much money, you have to analyze the needs before making investments and any technological development has to go in parallel with political and economic strategies to identify money flows that may be suspected of favoring piracy," he says.
The experts have held thematic meetings in which proposals have been presented that will give rise to potential research projects, taking into account that there are open European calls and other similar programs in the United States or Canada. "The idea is that after this congress there will be another one and in 2014 we will bring a bigger one to Salamanca again," says Corchado. In that appointment, "some of these projects will be a reality and will be presented here."
The CWIX program
One of the initiatives that can finance this type of technological projects is the CWIX (Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise) program of NATO-Spain and its head is José Fernández López, lieutenant colonel of the Defense General Staff, who today gave the closing conference and explained that CWIX has two aspects, "NATO and the national side".
In fact, "Spain is the only country that participates in this program in these two aspects along with the United States and the United Kingdom," he said. "For us the key word is interoperability, by which we understand that we have to communicate with other command and control systems of the armies, it is not easy to operate in Lebanon, Afghanistan or any scenario if each country has a different system, as in fact happens, so the objective is to achieve a single command and control system, "- Clarifies.
Budget cuts have also affected military technology. "Above technology is money and this is one of the umpteenth programs that have suffered cuts. This prevents the application of technologies to the Armed Forces and society. Without money it is difficult to implement systems that probably when they are needed in the future will have to be bought and that purchase will be at a much higher price than if we had developed them, "he warns.
In any case, José Fernández López has avoided commenting on specific figures, since "money is relative", because it depends on the evolution of the technology itself. In that sense, "now the cloud [storage of information on the Internet] is used instead of hard drives, so you have to work from within the Internet with security measures in communications."
"Play all the tournaments" to continue in the front line In addition, for the moment, "we have a Spanish command and control system that is operating in all parts of the world, then we do not have a lack, what we want is to improve it, go outside and test it with other armies, go to forums like this, review prototypes and R & D and improve". That is, "we are on the front line in communications technology, satellites and information systems, but as in football and basketball, to continue in the front line you have to play all the tournaments and all the finals. We are well positioned, but we would need not to lose rope," he adds.
In congresses such as the one held in Salamanca in the last two weeks, "we collect the innovations to be able to introduce them into our needs. Armies are permanently in need of updating. If we find forums in which technological innovations are presented to us, our obligation is to test them, because it is not the same in a laboratory as in the field, "explained the lieutenant colonel.
As an example of what can come out of this type of encounter between scientists and the military, he has put the case of the Spanish company Tecnobit. "In 2008 it presented an Internet communications protocol at a NATO congress, when the Alliance itself had predicted that this protocol would be developed in 2014," he said. Well, as a result of that presentation, this small Spanish company has managed to grow and has obtained large contracts.
Source: lukor.com
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