Modern warfighters rely on a suite of tools to enhance their awareness of what is happening in their surroundings. More and more, video data being delivered by a variety of unmanned vehicles (ground and air) and other sources has become one of the primary means for maintaining situational awareness. However, managing this volume of data, which often requires enhancement, fusion with other video streams and external databases, and other forms of analysis has largely required dedicated computer resurces that are simply not available to a front-line field warfighter. And, even if the computer resources were available, their power requirements would impact the amount of equipment the warfighter could carry.

IEM, in conjunction with the US Air Force, developed a very low power video processing tool capable of being employed in the field to provide a wide range of video acquisition, processing, and analytic functions. In its basic format, this Smart Video Module can be used in a standalone mode to channel one or two video streams through a set of preconfigured processing algorithms. The SVM may be stacked with other such boards to effectively double or triple the number of video feeds being processed and the entire stack may be integrated with a specially configured personal computer to enable a range of other analytical functions including multispectral fusion, stereoscopic vision, and much more.

Supported by IEM’s SlipStreams™ Integrated Development Environment, a skilled C Programmer can generate entire suites of applications to be deployed with the SVM that can then be used in the field by warfighters with little or no programming knowledge.