Getting the full picture
Indeed, one of the biggest daily challenges for any HQ is marshalling the situational awareness information from its various operational
cells into a readily understandable form for displaying to its commander – the well-known ‘morning brief’. Those responsible for pulling that together to account for what happened in the previous 24 hours must bring together relevant
data from all operational aspects: incidents, weather, enemy movements, logistics, deployment reports, etc.
“Doing that dynamically on-screen facilitates coordination between HQ cells, considering that each one can access
the tool with their own user profile. Thus, a logistics user can create new content that links to other tasks, with all feeding into the wider morning update report,” said Vivoli. “In other words, operational staff can adapt the hub’s
functionalities to their needs. And its operational advantage is that the more complex it becomes – the more information you feed into it – the more useful it becomes.”
Easy training As for training, this takes only a few days, according to Alessandra Ussorio, SatCen’s Projects Coordinator in the Capability Development Division. “The system is very user-friendly and intuitive to use. GeohuB offers several modules
as part of its self-guided training material, which is available through the appplication so users can see tutorials and application examples of its functionalities. In addition, advanced training for administrators is also delivered. Historically, this
was done physically either at SatCen or among the EU’s HQ sites, but under the current circumstances it has been switched to virtual training.” she explained. ”SatCen not only provides a tool, but a whole service, including training
and a help desk in support of the user community.”
Looking to the future, GISMO has a side project in the conceptual phase – ‘GeonaW’ (PNT threats geo-database to support mission planning and operations
in Navigation Warfare scenarios) to build on GeohuB’s technology. The Agency’s PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing) Project Team began researching the idea in 2020 with SatCen and their resultant landscaping study, use cases, and recommendations
are now under discussion.
When brought to fruition, GeonaW will help operational planners do their job in degraded environments when, for instance, satellite positioning and navigation signals are jammed. “That would be very
useful when operating in urban canyons or other built environments”, observed Vivoli.