High Latency, Higher Stakes
Rochester Institute of Technology, Fall 2023
Problem Statement
Technology Operation Groups (TOGs) need a way to more quickly transmit high-definition video data from surveillance systems in the Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA) region back to domestic command centers in order to make better informed decisions on how to respond to threats at overseas offices.
Problem Scoping and Discovery
The team conducted 61 discovery interviews and gained the following insights:
The ultimate goal for TOG is the creation of “video productions”, and their biggest hurdle is simple download speed.
This is an emerging issue that did not exist while using previous analog systems.
Bottlenecks occurs within local ISP infrastructure, which DS has minimal influence over
TOGs need to stay within 40% bandwidth usage.
Solution Proposed
The group's proposed solution is to utilize computer analysis and machine learning to improve the efficiency of accessing and analyzing video data. They focused on reducing the need for excessive downloading by using metadata from the video to inform the technology operation groups (TOGs) on what parts of the video they should download.
Results
The problem sponsor intends to propose the students’ recommended process to leadership across the multiple directorates that are involved in the solution, and find ways to get buy-in from the 300+ special agents overseas who will need to adopt the new process.