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Experiences from recent conflicts show the strong need for providing timely a precise situation picture in order to improve the situational awareness of commanders. Situational Awareness requires comprehensive information delivered at the right time and at the right place, which must be adapted to the user, his role and current task; it must be conforming to the communication and visualisation devices currently in use. Therefore, a lot of sensor data and corresponding information have to be considered, exploited and combined in a flexible way. Smart sensor suites comprising different multi-spectral imaging sensors as core elements as well as additional non-imaging sensors may contribute decisively to the needed complete situation picture. The smart sensor suites should be part of a smart sensor network – a network of sensors, databases, evaluation stations and user terminals. Its goal is to optimize the use of various information sources for military operations like situation assessment, intelligence, reconnaissance, target recognition and tracking. Such a smart sensor network will enable commanders to achieve higher levels of situational awareness. Such a smart sensor network will enable commanders to achieve higher levels of situational awareness based on increased flexibility in using combined smart sensors. This paper presents a prototype of an Open System Architecture based on a system-of-systems approach. The open system architecture enables combining different sensors in multiple physical configurations, like distributed sensors, co-located sensors combined in a single package, sensors mounted on a tower, sensors integrated in a mobile platform, and use of trigger sensors. The mode of operation is adaptable to a series of scenarios with respect to relevant objects of interest, activities to be observed, available transmission bandwidth, etc.
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