Abstract

The Swedish Armed Forces takes together with GIS-centrum an active part in the development of Military Geographic Information Systems (MGIS). A geographical information system can in many respects provide support for activities at a peacekeeping unit. The project, GIS Support for International Missions (GIS IM), was initiated by the Commanding Officer of one of the Nordic UN battalions in Bosnia.

The GIS IM concept includes training of operators, application development, field verification, hardware and software. GIS IM is developed within the Swedish Armed Forces’ GeoPres concept.

The application development is based on prototypes at three sites, one for the Swedish battalion in Bosnia, one for training at SWEDINT and one for further development at GIS-centrum in Stockholm.

The objectives

• To develop an operational GIS support for different branches involved in international missions.
• To establish routines for the supply of geographic data.
• To plan and carry out training of GIS IM operators.
• To integrate GIS IM in the training and simulator environment at SWEDINT.

The Results
Extensions for ArcView

• Military Geographic Information
  Support for documentation of military and civilian objects of interest for the mission.
• Visibility Analysis
  Support for reconnaissance in order to establish observation posts.
• Military Symbols (Situation Maps)
  Handling of the most important NATO symbols and different types of unit boundaries.

Training and exercises

• Training of, and practices for GIS-operators at SWEDINT and GIS-centrum

Supply of geographic data

• Well defined routines for geographic data supply.

Future developments

• Integration of GIS IM with software for the establishment and optimising of radio communications.
• Integration of GIS IM with software for support of the UN demining mission (MINURSO) in Western Sahara.