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| Lighting the fuse at 462 By SQNLDR Desmond Chin and SQNLDR John Kane Volume 49, No. 03, March 08, 2007 |
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Fuse is a deployable tool whose utility and flexibility has been examined by other Defence and law enforcement agencies at State and Federal levels. There has been considerable interest in its use and collaborative development beyond its conceptual stage. “The small developmental team of Reservist, Service and civilian personnel has delivered a product that will offer significant benefits to a number of different agencies and one that far exceeds the original concept,” SQNLDR Mark Collins, previously the Information Analysis Flight Commander of 462SQN, said. The ability to cross boundaries and be used by other agencies and departments has had many other advantages, including: - enhancement of the profile and image of AOSG, of which 462SQN is a key element, and the Air Force in general; - increased ability to be able to analyse information in a resource and time-effective manner; - removal of the need to subscribe to expensive third party software products with limited expansion or tailoring capabilities; and - less training requirements for personnel to use software tools. Fuse gained international recognition in a paper presented at the US Air Force conference by 462SQN’s Network Combat Flight Commander, Neil McNair. It won first prize for innovation and generated positive feedback. “Fuse development will continue this year, when it is planned to move the product out of concept stage and into a more formal developmental framework,” SQNLDR Collins said. “Although Fuse offers definite advantages and benefits over alternative methods, it must be remembered that the product is not an analytical tool. Analysts must still use their training and expertise to interpret the information that Fuse has compiled. Fuse supplies a means to collect, connect and display differing facets of information. But it is a tool that does this in a way that improves the performance, capability and effectiveness of the analysts.” SQNLDR Collins said that the need for a field deployable database and analytical tool had grown from the experience of the information operations support teams. “Before Fuse, we tried to use commercial analytical tools, but found them expensive and inflexible and not ideally suited to the rapidly changing information environment confronting the teams,” he said. “We also found that being able to create new information ‘entities’ and to simply and quickly link all these diverse forms of information into a total picture was not well handled in any commercially available product.” The concept was incrementally delivered and field-tested on three deployments during 2005. Switched on - Fuse tracks and links diverse information entities, including people, vehicles, buildings and locations to relationships and fuses that information into one situational picture. - The program has been designed so the analyst using the product has the ability to change or modify the program ‘on-the-fly’ to meet operational needs. - It supports a diverse range of analysis, such as time-based, and/or relational and other visual techniques. |
