Indra presents a new 360º vision system
Indra has developed a 360º vision system based on artificial intelligence that provides armoured vehicles with situational awareness and increases their efficiency when carrying out their mission.
The company presented its system to the Ministry of Defence, an evolution of the solution it started to develop within the first phase of the 8x8 Dragon programme, in a demonstration at the Parque y Centro de Mantenimiento de Vehículos Ruedas Nº 2 de Córdoba to the heads of the Army's General Staff (EME), the Directorate General of Material and Armament (DGAM) and the Army's Logistic Support Command (MALE).
The system incorporates different artificial intelligence algorithms that analyse the images collected by the visible, night and infrared range cameras placed around the vehicle. It thus manages to increase the range of detection and identification of people and platforms, discriminating whether they are friendly or enemy and assessing the degree of threat they represent, as well as the risk of ambush, and proposing possible protective measures and courses of action to accomplish the mission.
The crew monitors all this information and contributes collaboratively to its analysis to speed up the perception and understanding of what is happening at any given moment, which further increases the system's efficiency.
According to Indra's commercial director, Miguel Rodríguez Mora, "this is a technology that the most advanced armies in the world, such as those of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, are betting on" and stresses that "the use of AI will be especially important for operating in complex environments, such as urban areas or areas with poor visibility where it is more difficult to discriminate attackers and where reaction times are reduced".
What sets Indra's 360-degree vision system apart, Rodriguez Mora adds, is that it "goes beyond mere perception of the environment and has the ability to understand data, recognise patterns, interpret and evaluate what is happening and how it affects established plans". In this way, it is able to "automate tasks and make decisions much more quickly and clearly in situations of maximum stress, reducing the number of errors and increasing safety", he stresses.
The 360º vision system has been designed to be integrated with the 8x8 Dragon's Mission System, which has also been developed by Indra and which acts as the armoured vehicle's brain, controlling all the vehicle's sensors and subsystems. This type of technology contributes, in turn, to enriching the tactical vision managed by higher level systems, such as the Battlefield Management System (BMS), currently integrated in the Army's armoured vehicles and combat vehicles, which is also based on Indra technology and which facilitates the coordination and exchange of information between units deployed in an operation.