Case Study on TIGR(Tactical Ground Reporting System)

United States Army: Organizational Profile•The United States Army is the main

branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services.

•The primary mission of the Army is to "provide necessary forces and capabilities ... in support of the National Security and Defense Strategies."

Operational Profile

The Iraq War• The Iraq War or War in Iraq, also referred to as

the Second Gulf War or Operation Iraqi Freedom,[49]

 was a military campaign that began on March 20, 2003,[50][51] with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops from the United States under the administration of President George W. Bush and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Tony Blair.

• After the invasion, resistance movements and militias began launching attacks on both domestic and foreign military targets, as well as civilian targets. 

• The tactics of the Iraqi insurgency vary widely. Minority Jihadist elements use car bombs, kidnappings, hostage-taking, shootings and other types of attacks to target Iraqi collaborators and U.S. forces with little regard for civilian casualties.

Problems Faces in Operations

•The U.S. Army went into the Iraq War with many technological advantages over their opponents.

•Despite the wealth of technology available information about enemy movements and troop levels did not reach the officers on the ground in many cases.

Causes• The technology was less efficient than

advertised. Units outran the range of high capacity communication relays, and mobile communication suffered from slow download speeds, buggy software and lockups. Units had to be stationary while communication, hence leaving them vulnerable to attack.

• Due to the old chain of hierarchy followed, information had to go up the chain of command and then be interpreted and transmitted to units on the ground, leading to time delays and gaps in the information flow.

•The environment in Iraq did not suit the U.S. strategy.

•The small armed groups of insurgents communicated information horizontally, which is quicker and more efficient.

•There is more decentralized system in place, where front line soldiers can freely exchange information.

•Service members on the battlefield collect data, share the data, make decisions, and other strikes against the enemy.

Need for Managerial Information Systems•A plethora of technology already exists

with the U.S. Army such as motion sensors, heat detectors, and reconnaissance eavesdroppers; an advanced vehicle tracking system, Blue Force Tracker, which marks the location of the U.S. units and enables e-mail communication.

•However the problem was with ensuring front line soldiers could easily and efficiently access this information.

DARPA(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)•The Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military.

•One the most prominent new technologies developed by DARPA to help in countering insurgents in Iraq, is TIGR, or the Tactical Ground Reporting System.

Functions of TIGR• TIGR can best be described as a cross between

Google Maps and Wikipedia.• It revolves around maps that patrol leaders can

review and edit.• Clickable icons and lists display key locations

and information associated with those locations.• The application supports a variety of media

formats, including voice recordings, digital photos, and global positioning system location information.

• The system can be used to brief new units on key historical and contextual information as they rotate into particular zones.

Challenges faced while deploying TIGR•A method needed to be developed for

synchronizing copies of the same data set located in many different areas, which could be modified by any returning patrol leader.

•Also, the soldiers needed to be able to access a variety of multimedia information without the system getting overloaded. This was dealt with by developing a network that carefully rations the available bandwith.

Benefits of TIGR•The system enhances local knowledge by

collecting and organizing information on key infrastructure, landmarks and terrain.

•Patrol officers can record events as specific as meeting with local leaders.

•TIGR accommodates the dynamic infrastructures of wartime environments and allows users to update information easily.

•TIGR also assists the unit rotation process as discussed.