DISA system improves access to, quality of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance video

The recent activation of the Unified Video Dissemination System (UVDS) at the Defense Information System’s Agency’s datacenter in Weisbaden, Germany, has improved the reliable, secure transport of full-motion video (FMV) collected for the purpose of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) in support of missions lead by all combatant commands.

UVDS enables members of the global U.S. intelligence community to view live FMV feeds -- collected by manned and unmanned aerial platforms -- in high fidelity and without imagery dropout, ultimately improving situational awareness, enabling decision-making, and improving commanders’ ability to ensure the safety of troops.

“The delivery of UVDS at the Wiesbaden Datacenter is the first major step towards providing a global ISR distribution capability with multiple global points of presence,” said Rick Shaw, deputy commander of the DISA Africa Field Office. “This brings much needed capacity into the theater and further enables our mission partners to successfully manage their missions.”

Prior to the activation of this UVDS instance in the European theater, there were only two UVDS locations, in DISA’s datacenters in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The addition of a third instantiation resulted in reduced latency and improved fidelity, particularly in the European, African, Central, and Special Operations Command areas of responsibility.

UVDS can support simultaneous FMV feeds from nearly 200 sources – typically drones -- then immediately routes the video to users through DISA’s satellite communication gateways and the Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) to UVDS server locations for storage and further dissemination to mission partners’ hosting locations.

From a secret internet protocol router network (SIPRNet) browser, users are able to select among incoming sources and simultaneously view multiple live or archived videos/images without the need for dedicated point-to-point circuits from each source.

Each month there are more than 64,000 unique visitors to UVDS and more than 250,000 hours of video are watched.

“DISA’s Infrastructure Directorate plans to expand UVDS into Central Command in calendar year 2018,” said Bob Willett, chief of the SATCOM Gateway Evolution and Sustainment Office. “Long-term plans also include expansion into the Pacific theater.”

DISA also plans to modernize SATCOM Gateways Southwest Asia to improve the capability of receiving multiple FMV feeds and distributing them to UVDS portals for further analysis and distribution, he said.

Posted April 6, 2017