Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology
Paul Kaminski today signed an agreement with Environmental
Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM), Ann Arbor, Mich., and
Intermap Technologies Inc., Englewood, Colo., that gives Intermap
exclusive use of a government radar system. In return, Intermap
provides DoD with preferred availability and rates, and pay
royalties to DoD. The agreement allows Intermap to commercialize
an important military radar technology (interferometric synthetic
aperture radar), while maintaining the Department of Defenses
low-cost access to the systems capability to produce accurate,
detailed maps and digital terrain elevation models.
The radar system, the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture
Radar - Elevation (IFSARE), was developed by ERIM under a Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project. DoD no longer
wished to bear the cost of operating, maintaining and upgrading
the system to an operational configuration but wished to retain
the right to use the system as needed to produce military maps.
Under the agreement, Intermap takes over maintenance and
operating costs, and will attempt to sell commercial mapping
services. Intermaps royalty payments based on those sales
allow DARPA to recoup its cost of funding the research and
development of the IFSARE advanced capability.
In signing the agreement, Kaminski noted, The IFSARE
provides a unique military capability, but no single organization
could justify the maintenance costs of full-time ownership of the
system. Todays agreement allows DoD to have needed access to
the capability, without having to bear those costs. And, as
Intermap commercializes this important technology, they will
maintain and improve it for our future use as well as for their
commercial customers.
The IFSARE program began in 1992, when DARPA, in partnership
with the Army Topographic Engineering Center, determined that
there was a need for an airborne, all-weather, day/night, radar-
based mapping capability. IFSARE can image large geographic
areas with a high degree of terrain height accuracy, an ability
that is necessary for the military to produce accurate maps and
terrain surveys for military operations. The maps can be
produced in either photographic or digital format.
Since 1992, the IFSARE has been used in Bosnia for terrain
and elevation analysis, and by the Defense Mapping Agency (now
the National Imagery and Mapping Agency), the U.S. Geological
Survey, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other government
organizations.
ERIM is a non-profit organization with expertise in advanced
radar technologies. ERIM and Intermap have a partnership where
ERIM develops new radar technologies and Intermap operates the
IFSARE system and develops commercial applications.
