IEEE Communications Magazine • October 201342 0163-6804/13/$25.00 © 2013 IEEE

Portions of this workappeared at MILCOM2009.

INTRODUCTION

The Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR)[1] was designed by the Defense AdvancedResearch Projects Agency (DARPA) for use bypatrol soldiers at the company echelon andbelow. These soldiers have adopted the systemas their primary tool for capturing and sharingcombat patrol information, and there are nowmore than 95,000 users of the system. At thetime of writing, TIGR is actively used at hun-dreds of sites by thousands of deployed U.S.Army and British Army soldiers in Afghanistanand throughout the world, as well as all conti-

nental U.S. (CONUS) Army units undergoingpre-deployment training.

TIGR addresses a series of challengingrequirements: the need to efficiently search largeamounts of tactical data and the need to supportrich multimedia attachments, using bandwidth-efficient thumbnails and compressed versions ofthe multimedia. TIGR was developed as a sys-tem tailored to the distribution and searching ofrich media, and fills a gap between operationsand intelligence by providing theater-wide distri-bution of patrol reports, significant actions, andother tactical information.

This article examines key design aspects of thesystem that are responsible for its widespreadadoption: a web browser client that is intuitive,lightweight, and scalable, and a cloud-based archi-tecture that makes extensive use of caching andcompression to minimize network utilization andoptimize the user experience over tactical net-works with frequent outages. The article also pro-vides a description of the user base and use casesof TIGR that drive the utilization of the system.

TIGR USERSTIGR was designed originally for patrol leadersand other operational users at the company ech-elon and below, and focused on post-patroldebriefs and pre-patrol mission planning. Ratherthan solely relying on higher echelon intelligencestaff for relevant information, a platoon leaderor company commander could search TIGR forall information on the area of interest, and alsodirectly enter reports and pictures into TIGRafter a mission. TIGR breaks from the tradition-al hierarchical, bottom-up filtered informationflow of reporting, and instead builds on the suc-cesses of direct peer-to-peer collaboration thatoriginated in efforts such as CompanyCommand[2] and CAVNET [3].

Since its initial fielding, TIGR has not onlystrengthened information sharing among patrolleaders but has allowed the common operationalpicture to be shared among disparate groups onthe ground. For example, TIGR allows “land-owning” units to collaborate with other units

ABSTRACT

The Tactical Ground Reporting System(TIGR) is a cloud-based application that facili-tates collaboration and information sharing atthe patrol level. DARPA began developmentefforts in 2005, and introduced the system to asingle brigade in Iraq at the beginning of 2007.Its use spread to all Army units in Iraq andAfghanistan, as well as Kuwait, the Philippines,South Korea, and the Horn of Africa, and it hasproven to be an indispensable tool for counter-insurgency operations. The system enables col-lection and dissemination of fine-grainedinformation on people, places, and events, andoffers a media-rich view of the battlefield withdigital photos, videos, and high-resolution geo-spatial imagery. In 2011 TIGR transitioned tothe Army and is now managed by the ProjectManager for the Joint Battle Command-Plat-form (PM JBC-P), where it has expanded toinclude vehicle-based systems and other on-the-move operational scenarios. Despite the richnessof its multimedia content, TIGR has successfullyoperated for years in multiple theaters of warwith minimal impact on low-bandwidth tacticalnetworks. This article describes the TIGR sys-tem and how it has evolved, as well as the chal-lenges of designing and deploying a distributedsystem for disadvantaged networks, and theunique data dissemination architecture that hasmade TIGR such a success.

MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS

Joseph B. Evans, University of Kansas

Benjamin J. Ewy, Michael T. Swink, and Steven G. Pennington, General Dynamics C4 Systems

Debra J. Siquieros, PEO C3T

Samuel L. Earp, Multisensor Science, LLC

TIGR: The Tactical Ground Reporting System

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that work in or travel through their area ofresponsibility (AOR) such as the Military Police(MP), Combat Service Support (CSS) and logis-tics units, and Human Terrain Team (HTT)members. All these groups can share and utilizethe information they are collecting and tracking.Also, notably, TIGR facilitates information pushdownward to the “tip of the spear” so that patrolleaders now have access to detailed improvisedexplosive device (IED) threat analysis and ultra-high-resolution map imagery previously onlyavailable at the higher echelons. Patrol leaderscan view geographically specific warnings postedby the intelligence teams of impending attacks aswell as possible IED plantings along their patrolroute. Traditionally, information was vetted andfiltered as it went up the chain of command;TIGR promotes peer-to-peer information shar-ing at every echelon. TIGR was originallyfocused on planning and debriefing activities,but has been extended to provide real-time situ-ational awareness information such as displayingposition location information. Beginning in 2012,TIGR systems began being deployed as part ofthe Joint Capabilities Release (JCR) softwareupdate [4] in some vehicles, and in 2013 TIGRsystems are deployed in Warfighter InformationNetwork — Tactical (WIN-T) [5] commanders’vehicles allowing for use on the move, and dur-ing the execution phase of missions.

TIGR INFORMATION MODELOne requirement of designing an intuitive userinterface is the need for an information modelthat is both simple and general. Traditionally,

military reporting consists of filling out formswith many obligatory fields that reflect the infor-mation needs of higher echelons. The structuredfields often become irrelevant or obsolete as thefight evolves. The TIGR data model comprisesjust five types of data objects — Events, Places,Reports, Tasks, and Collections — and theircontent is unobtrusively structured. The numberof mandatory fields is kept to the minimum.

Events are represented as icons on the mapand can describe non-kinetic activities (e.g.,meeting a local leader) as well as enemy activity(e.g., small arms attack). TIGR Events are creat-ed by selecting the Event Category from a drop-down menu and dragging the icons onto themap. An Event’s key fields are the time of occur-rence and location. Additional structured datacan include its title, creator name, creator unit,drawings on the map, narrative summary, andany relevant media. Media commonly consist ofphotos, but may also include video, audio,Microsoft® Office documents and other files.

Places are similar to Events but only have alocation, not a time of occurrence. Places arethings such as a power plant, a mosque, or otherinfrastructure.

Reports are summaries that pull togetherEvents and Places with additional narrative con-text that may describe an overall mission andinclude the route or track taken if appropriate.Reports are created when a soldier returns froma patrol and describes the details of his/her mis-sion, including the Places visited and the Eventsthat occurred while on patrol.

Tasks are used for mission planning and exe-cution purposes. Using Tasks, a user can place a

Figure 1. Example task window, and the corresponding icons and operational graphics on the map.

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Task on the map, assign a unit to perform thedesired task, assign a date/time, attach relevantmedia such as orders, and create and associatesub-tasks (i.e., for platoon- or squadron-level subtasks).

Collections are a user-defined group ofEvents, Places, Tasks, and Reports. It is similarto a folder; examples include all detainees forthe month of April, high value target reportingfor a particular area of operations, or a group ofall reconstruction projects in a particular AOR.

TIGR CLIENTThe TIGR client is browser-based, and has asimple interface that supports the full range ofoperations for a lower echelon unit. TIGR wasdesigned using the look and feel of popularsocial media websites, making its usage veryintuitive for younger generations of soldiers.There are specially optimized interfaces avail-able for smaller screened laptops, as well astouch screen panels found in vehicle installa-tions. The client has a presentation based onmaps, and makes use of menus and tabs. Thereare five main tabs: Search, Create, Forums, T-Mail, and Profile. The Search for content isdone with the map interface. The Create taballows content such as Events and drawings tobe added to the map. The Forums tab providesaccess to a forum where users in the TIGR com-munity exchange information of tactical rele-vance as well as postings related to desiredfeature enhancements in TIGR or technicalproblems encountered. The T-Mail tab accessesthe TIGR internal messaging capability. TheProfile tab accesses the user profile including thecontact information for a user, which is especial-ly valuable for users to collaborate outside ofTIGR. TIGR makes it easy to find and contact

the soldier on the ground with direct knowledgeof the people, places, and events of interest. Thisdirect tie between the data in TIGR and realpeople provides a level of trust and believabilitythat is unique in tactical systems.

Information is presented in a spatial context,using icons or drawings as appropriate. The datain TIGR is searchable by keyword, date timegroup range, category, and unit. Most important,data is searchable using the map — a soldier candraw a box, polygon or route on the map andconstrain the search to the designated area.Searches can be modified, for example, by resiz-ing the geospatial search or changing the hostileevent categories of interest. When search criteriaare updated, the results automatically appearboth geospatially on the map as well as in a listview.

The map icons are active elements: a mouserollover of an icon will show thumbnails ofattached pictures, and a mouse click will bring upa window with detailed information about theicon. For example, a click on an Event icon willreveal the detailed narrative of the event thatoccurred, and all of the attached media and photothumbnails. A mouse click on one of the thumb-nails will bring up a larger view of the photo.

The amount of content in each Report, Event,and Place varies greatly in terms of textual detailand the number of media added. A user inAfghanistan, for example, combined the use ofTIGR with a GPS-enabled camera to capture asignificant number of photos during a fight. Theresulting report, with over 100 Mbytes of photos,would have been impossibly hard to share usingtraditional means, but TIGR makes widespreaddissemination possible and information discoveryeasy as each photo is represented on the TIGRmap with an icon, rather than being just a fileattachment in a large assortment of files.

Figure 2. High-resolution aerial imagery with ground-level view perspective.

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High-quality terrain imagery is of key impor-tance to tactical users who rely on maps for mis-sion planning and analysis. TIGR currentlyprovides the best tactical map imagery to usersby tapping into a variety of different sources.Commercial geospatial imagery from a variety ofsources as well as the National Geospatial-Intel-ligence Agency (NGA) provides 0.6 to 1 m perpixel resolution imagery covering hot spots suchas Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. TIGRutilizes a forward deployed team to process anddistribute the very latest aerial imagery collectedin theater (e.g., Buckeye [6] and PeARL™ [7])to provide even higher-resolution views. TIGRutilizes elevation data from satellite and LightDetection and Ranging (LIDAR) to provide ter-rain information to enhance mission planningusing the built-in line of sight and intervisibilitytools. All of this imagery is provided by anOpenGIS standards compliant Web Map Service(WMS) [8] server, which allows other systems toleverage the local imagery repositories. Imageryis stored locally on servers throughout the cloudto reduce WAN bandwidth requirements. Dueto constraints imposed by available storagespace, a typical server is configured with a baseset of NGA imagery for the whole country,enhanced with a higher-resolution imagery setthat covers the particular region the server issupporting.

TIGR defaults to automatically selecting thebest imagery as a user pans or zooms the mapusing an algorithm that takes into account theresolution and collection date of the imagery.The user can also choose among all availableimagery choices for a particular area so that theycan see a topological map, an older map show-ing a region prior to a reconstruction project,and so on. In addition to elevation, satellite,aerial, and topological map imagery, TIGRoffers a 360° ground-level view of approximately9000 street miles in Iraq and 1000 street miles inAfghanistan. This data was originally collectedas part of the Rapid Equipping Force [9] spon-sored TOURIST project, but PM JBC-P hasbegun integrating ground-level perspectiveimagery from other sources, and this is expectedto increase significantly as the typical vehiclesensor packages expand.

TIGR SERVERSTIGR is a distributed cloud-based systemdesigned to operate on disadvantaged networks.TIGR uses persistent TCP connections overexisting network assets — tactical networkassets under unit control and the strategic net-work — as available. The TIGR cloud consistsof servers located at large forward operatingbases (FOBs), as well as remote outposts suchas joint security stations (JSSs) and coalitionoutposts (COPs).

Server hardware varies from multi-CPU rack-mounted servers with uninterruptible power sup-plies to laptop computers. The laptop servers aredeployed in large numbers at smaller outposts.A snapshot of the Iraq server topology when atits most distributed level is depicted in Fig. 3.

The server distribution is critical to provid-ing reliable functionality on tactical networks.

Tactical networks are unreliable for many rea-sons; for example, power disruptions or diffi-cult terrain can cause outages. Hence, linkoutages and disruptions are the norm ratherthan the exception. Multiple primary replica-tion connections are utilized at key servers, aswell as secondary connections configured to beutilized as alternate server options, particularlyfor mobile servers. By placing servers close tothe users at the edge, we can ensure that sol-diers can continue to exercise TIGR function-ality locally even when all of these network andserver redundancy mechanisms are insuffi-cient.. Once the WAN connectivity is restored,TIGR’s synchronization mechanism will auto-matically exchange the data generated duringan outage.

The TIGR architecture [10] consists ofclients, mobile servers, edge servers, and coreservers. Functionally, the difference betweencore servers and the smaller edge and mobileservers is simply the amount and type of infor-mation that is synchronized with its peers. Whendeployed to the battlefield, servers are config-ured based on their role and where they arelocated in terms of geography, network connec-tivity, and military organization.

All servers in a TIGR network store themetadata for all TIGR content in a local searchindex. This helps ensure that when a soldier per-forms a search within TIGR, they will not bemissing critical high-level information, evenwhen WAN connectivity is unavailable. When asearch is performed, the metadata in the localdatabase is used to retrieve the items best match-ing that query.

The retrieved items can then be opened inthe user interface to study text and multimediacontent. When viewing a report, a media itemwould typically be viewed at reduced resolution.If there is a need for a higher-resolution item, itmight already be in the local repository, or itmight be elsewhere in the network. If it isremote, it can be retrieved through a targetedon-demand replication capability. Any media notin the local repository will be unavailable ifWAN connectivity is down, and the soldier isnotified to try again when connectivity isrestored.

An example TIGR logical network is shownin Fig. 4, illustrating the data flows and policiesbetween clients and servers of different types:• Core servers: These are typically located

in stable locations — large bases with reli-able facilities including good network con-nectivity. These servers providecomprehensive repositories of content inaddition to serving as key participants inthe distribution topology. They are hometo search information (metadata), thumb-nails, pictures, and media files (Power-Point®, videos, etc.) for all contentcreated in a theater of operation. Theyalso have a copy of all map imagery forthe entire theater.

• Edge servers: These are typically located insmaller forward operating bases and com-bat outposts, which are relatively fixed butnot as richly equipped in terms of networkconnectivity and other amenities. These

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servers provide local content and also serveas a conduit through which content isobtained from the other servers in the net-work. Edge servers have detailed mapimagery for the area of operations of theunit in which they reside, plus any otherimagery deemed useful. They contain searchinformation, thumbnails, and compressedversions of pictures for all content created ina theater of operations, plus full media forthe AOR served by the edge server. If a useraccesses media that is not local to the edge,a directed media request is sent to the edgeserver’s peers to retrieve the data, and it isthen cached locally for future reuse.

• Mobile servers: The touchscreen optimizedTIGR servers may operate disconnected onlow-bandwidth vehicles such as JCR sys-tems, or connected as mobile edge servers

in vehicles with higher bandwidths such ascommanders’ vehicles in units with WIN-TIncrement 2 [5].

• Clients: Clients can be either web browserson the same computer on which the TIGRserver is installed or a web browser on othercomputers on the same LAN as one of theservers.The typical TIGR data policy is to have all

data created on the TIGR network sent from theedges to the core servers to preserve data integri-ty and reliability (backups of all TIGR data canbe performed at any single geographically dis-persed core server location). The core serverswill propagate back down to the edge serversonly the metadata, thumbnails, and compressedversions of media to reduce bandwidth usedwhile allowing for a complete local search repos-itory.

Figure 3. TIGR cloud topology in Iraq at its largest.

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TIGR INTEROPERABILITY

Interoperability and data exchange is an impor-tant element for any tactical system. There areother databases that hold data of interest toTIGR users, and users of other systems that areinterested in analyzing TIGR data. TIGR iscapable of doing data exchange manually byexporting and importing data in formats used byMicrosoft Office, FalconView™, Google Earth™,and ESRI ArcGIS®. TIGR has used manualimports to bring legacy repositories such as largespreadsheets of places into TIGR. TIGR usershave manually exported TIGR data for visualiza-tion in tools such as Analyst’s Notebook®, Axis-Pro®, and Google Earth.

TIGR provides a SOAP-based web service toallow external systems to access and manipulateTIGR data in an automated fashion. This capa-bility is used to pull TIGR data into otherdatabases including Combined Information DataNetwork Exchange (CIDNE®), Command Postof the Future (CPOF), Palantir, and DistributedCommon Ground Station — Army (DCGS-A).TIGR automatically imports significant activities(SIGACTs) and a number of other reports fromCIDNE, CPOF, and MarineLink, among others.

SERVER MANAGEMENTBecause deployed TIGR systems are composedof servers utilizing disadvantaged tactical com-munications networks, a unique managementsystem is required to overcome connectivity,delay, and bandwidth issues. The TIGR monitorprovides four capabilities: overall TIGR networksituational awareness, detailed interserver trafficmonitoring, information on server configurationand software status, and remote patching. Themanagement system utilizes monitoring process-es that run on each TIGR server. These moni-toring processes collect information from thevarious TIGR processes as well as the host oper-ating system, and then summarize this informa-tion for periodic updates to a centralizedmanagement server. The central managementserver provides web-based graphical visualizationof the cloud status, including server status andconnectivity, synchronization policy settings, andserver software revision level (the topology dia-gram in Fig. 3 is taken directly from this graphi-cal interface). The central monitor allows forremote network monitoring, the collection ofsoldier usage statistics, and configurationupdates. The central management server alsohas the ability to reach out to remote servers toselectively update portions of the TIGR softwarein a bandwidth-efficient yet persistent manner.

NETWORK UTILIZATIONThe tactical networks deployed in theaters likeIraq and Afghanistan are often taxed, and thenetwork utilization of an application is a criticalparameter in successfully coexisting with theother applications on the tactical WAN.

A representative flow for a newly authoredreport starts with a user creating the report andattaching media. Thumbnails and compressedversions of the media are created and stored in

the local repository. The metadata is indexedinto the local search index. Next, a priority queu-ing system first sends the metadata toward thecore of the network. Thumbnails are the nextqueue transmitted, then the compressed versions,and finally, the full size media is sent to the core.On average, in Afghanistan we see edge serverstransmit approximately 2 Mbytes/day [10] uptoward their closest core server.

As the data flows to the core servers, the sub-scriptions for what should be sent out to theother edge servers come into play. In this casecontent coming into the core from a particularedge server will then be selectively sent out to allof the other edge servers. The metadata will besent first, and then thumbnails of attachedmedia. Typically, a subscription is utilized thatalso sends compressed media out to all edges,but this is optional based on network bandwidthavailability. Usually, in Afghanistan a core serverwill transmit 15 Mbytes/day of data down toeach edge server [10].

The general characteristics of TIGR dataflows is such that the core to edge traffic is theaggregation of content at all servers in the net-work, whereas the edge to core traffic is only thecontent created at that particular edge serverand subject to more variability due to the chang-ing nature (in particular, media attachments) ofany given day’s reporting requirements. The coreto edge traffic is less variable than the edge tocore traffic because it is an aggregation ofsources.

Traffic collected from Afghanistan providesan opportunity to explore these traffic character-istics in more depth. Figure 5 plots the dailybytes sent from an edge to the core for 100servers for seven days each. The resulting his-togram has a Poisson distribution that is charac-teristic of networking systems describing the

Figure 4. Sample TIGR logical network.

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traffic being offered into the system. The sam-ples in the tail of the distribution are typicallyeither a large media attachment that dominatesa particular sample or the result of a long outageat the tactical edge if WAN connectivity is lostfor multiple days; when the edge server comesonline, it has a larger than normal daily trans-mission as it must send multiple days worth ofreporting to the core.

Figure 6 shows the distribution of daily bytessent from the core servers back out to the edge.This is the histogram of received bytes for 100servers, one sample for each of seven days.Here the traffic distribution is Gaussian, asmight be expected by the central limit theorem,because this traffic is the aggregate of a largenumber of independent data sources. This datashows the effect of multiple-day outages on datasent from the core to the edge. The averagenumber of bytes sent was approximately 15Mbytes/day, but also discernible in the tail ofthe distribution are harmonics at the two-dayoutage and three-day outage values of 30 and 45Mbytes/day.

This data illustrates that TIGR traffic is wellbehaved and does not stress the WAN links

interconnecting outposts and larger bases, andthat the system has flexibility in what is sentand at what rates [11, 12]. This provides theability to control data flows and network uti-lization to support a wide variety of networkdeployments.

TIGR DATATIGR has become a very rich historical datarepository filled with multimedia information.There is over 170 Gbytes of data in the Iraqrepository, and the biggest single weekly growthwas over 2 Gbytes in the week of December 21,2008. The combined repositories in Afghanistancontain almost 300 Gbytes of soldier-generatedreports and media. The single biggest week ofdata being added in Afghanistan was the weekof June 12, 2011, when over 3.7 Gbytes of datawas added, including more than 5000 pho-tographs.

The consolidated TIGR repositories as ofJanuary 2013 have more than 618,000 Events,343,000 Places, 172,000 Reports, 29,000 Collec-tions, and 293,000 photographs along with anoth-er 281,000 media files (PowerPoint presentations,Word documents, etc.).

In 2012, in Afghanistan alone, 9000 Power-Point attachments taking up 24.5 Gbytes of diskspace were added, along with 20,750 pho-tographs taking up 55.7 Gbytes of disk space. Allof this data is completely searchable using key-words, units, categories, geographic regions, andtime. In 2012 soldiers performed almost 3 mil-lion searches in Afghanistan. In a typical week inAfghanistan during 2012, 3000 soldiers loggedinto TIGR more than 9000 times to perform56,000 searches, and create 3600 Events, 600Places, and 900 multimedia documents adding 2Gbytes of data to the repository, all while oper-ating in a low-bandwidth network environmentwith high latency, power outages, and difficultenvironmental conditions.

CONCLUSIONSAs the Army moves toward its Common Operat-ing Environment, the TIGR model (web-based,WSDL interfaces, use of standard open tech-nologies, cloud-like data provider and synchingmechanism) easily supports the new require-ments across multiple computing environmentsto include mounted, handheld, sensor, and com-mand post. TIGR is unique because of its com-bination of collaborative, intuitive products thathave enabled soldiers to find emergent usagesfor the product itself, ranging from using TIGRas a “yellow pages” and a logistics tracking tool,for security surveillance, and more.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe authors would like to thank Dr. Mari Maedafor her contributions to this work. The technolo-gy described in this article was developed underUS Government contracts W15P7T-07-C-P219and HR0011-10-C-0030.

REFERENCES[1] D. Talbot, “A Technology Surges,” Technology Rev., vol.

111, no. 2, Apr. 2008, pp. 70–74.

Figure 5. Traffic histogram, edge to core.

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[2] N. M. Dixon et al., CompanyCommand: Unleashing thePower of the Army Profession, Center for the Advance-ment of Leader Development & Organizational Learn-ing, 2005; CompanyCommand.army.mil.

[3] Maj. P. Michaelis, speaking on FRONTLINE: A Companyof Soldiers: Innovating & Improvising, WGBH and PBS,Feb. 22, 2005, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front-line/shows/company/lessons/.

[4] C. Schwerin, Army Fields Next-Generation Blue ForceTracking System, http://www.army.mil/article/61624/

[5] K. ain, Army Rolls Out Networked Capability Set 13,http://www.army.mil/article/87085/

[6] D. Miles, Buckeye System Brings New Digital Capabilityto Warfighters, American Forces Press Service, June 13,2006.

[7] Urban Robotics, Inc., PeARL Digital Imaging Sensors,http://www.urbanrobotics.net/home.php?page=prod-ucts_pearl.

[8] Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc., “OpenGIS Web MapService (WMS) Implementation Specification,” v1.3.0,Mar. 2006.

[9] D. Miles, Rapid Equipping Force Speeds New Technolo-gy to Front Lines, American Forces Press Service, Aug.12, 2005.

[10] B. J. Ewy et al., “TIGR in Iraq and Afghanistan: Net-work-Adaptive Distribution of Media Rich TacticalData,” IEEE MILCOM ’09, Oct. 2009.

[11] Tactical Ground Reporting Network Bandwidth Analy-sis Report, PEOC3T Systems Integration and Engineer-ing Division Futures Office, 8 Mar. 2007.

[12] S. West et al., Tactical Ground Reporting System InTheater Assessment (FOUO), Fort Monroe, VA, 24 Jan.2008.

BIOGRAPHIESBENJAMIN EWY (benjamin.ewy@gdc4s.com) is a member oftechnical staff for General Dynamics C4 Systems. He hasbeen involved in design, implementation, and deploymentof the TIGR program since 2006. He holds an M.S. in elec-trical engineering and a B.S. in communications engineer-ing, both from the University of Kansas. His researchinterests include probabilistic network management andcognitive networks.

JOSEPH B. EVANS (evans@ku.edu) is the Deane E. AckersDistinguished Professor of EECS at the University ofKansas (KU). He has served as director of the Informa-tion & Telecommunication Technology Center and direc-tor of Research IT at KU, and as a program director atthe National Science Foundation. He has co-foundedstartups including a network gaming company acquiredby Microsoft in 2000 and the defense-oriented ventureacquired by General Dynamics in 2010 that developedTIGR. He received a Ph.D. from Princeton University in1989.

DEBRA SIQUIEROS (debra.siquieros@gmail.com) was the chiefengineer of the TIGR System for PM FBCB2 and worked forthe Army for over 30 years. She is in the systems engi-neering Ph.D. program at Stevens Institute of Technology,from which she also holds a Master’s of Engineering innetwork information systems. Her research interestsinclude patterns for security systems of systems design.She also writes and lectures for her consulting firm, RedHot Security.

SAMUEL EARP (searp@multisensorscience.com) received hisPh.D. in electrical engineering from Duke University. He hasheld a wide variety of academic, technical, and manageri-al positions in the defense industry over the last 30 years.For the last decade, he has been a principal of MultisensorScience, LLC ,and a consultant to DARPA.

MICHAEL SWINK (michael.swink@gdc4s.com) is a softwareengineer with General Dynamics C4 Systems. He is the TIGRsystems architect and has been responsible for the TIGRdata storage and replication system since 2006. He holdsan M.S. in electrical engineering and a B.S. in communica-tions engineering, both from the University of Kansas.

STEVEN PENNINGTON (steven.pennington@gdc4s.com) is amember of technical staff with General Dynamics C4 Sys-tems. He has been a systems architect responsible for thegeospatial capabilities of the TIGR program since 2006. Heholds an M.S. in electrical engineering and a B.S. in com-munications engineering, both from the University ofKansas. His research interests include geospatial analysis,software defined radios, and RF spectrum reuse.

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