NGA wants ideas for automatically spotting changes in its geospatial data

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is looking for commercial solutions to improve how it detects changes in its baseline layer of global geospatial data.

While the commercial solutions opening offers an enticing opportunity, the agency emphasizes that no money is obligated and there may be no awards. Instead, it appears that NGA wants to build a stable of providers the agency can tap into as funding becomes available.

NGA's approach is similar to a broad agency announcement and allows the agency to solicit and evaluate potential solutions.

This example involves how NGA is looking for new technologies, processes or methods that can help it detect changes across its databases. The project is called Foundation GEOINT Change Detection.

The GEOINT data provides a framework that describes the physical and cultural characteristics of the world. GEOINT data is a critical part of how NGA serves intelligence, defense, civil and commercial missions.

The Foundation GEOINT Operations Office fields hundreds of validated requirements a year for mapping and safety-of-navigation data and separately maintains an authoritative "listing of products" for more than 600 non-combatant evacuation operation sites across 189 countries.

Currently, finding where changes that justify updating products is largely a manual, case-by-case process.

Localized change detection tools already exist, but they require a user to already know where to look. The agency wants a system that surface relevant changes globally, without a human pointing them at a location first.

NGA’s data includes earth sciences, gravity, magnetics, geodetic surveys, elevation, precise imagery and coordinate systems. The data supports global navigation satellite systems, topography, cartography, geographic names, human geography, political geography, and safety of navigation for maritime and aeronautical domains.

Solutions must be unclassified, commercial and shareable with international partners. NGA is encouraging teaming among companies to cover the full pipeline — from data collection through exploitation — rather than expecting a single vendor to do it all.

NGA will evaluate proposals for funding feasibility and then rate them for technical feasibility, responsiveness, viability and desirability.

Submissions are due July 21.