Mercury Computer Systems this week introduced a sensor network architecture for use by the military on the "next-generation" battlefield.

The company says its Converged Sensor Network Architecture connects sensors, embedded computing systems, data storage and image display units, and sends the sensor data over an IP-based network.

One key advance is that sensor data will be processed before sending images over the network, instead of sending massive raw data files, saving bandwidth. Also, Mercury says that most imagery systems used by the military are platform-centric, with data moving up and down command structures; the new system aims to get the right data to the people in the field who really need it.

Mercury argues that having a standard IP-based network connecting everything means that sensor images can be distributed more easily and quickly to whomever needs them: "an aerial photo can move to the display in a Humvee or a sonar image can move to a ship captain's laptop."

Further, Mercury says multiple sensors can give soldiers more information: "For example, an infrared image overlayed on a radar image of a parking lot can determine which vehicles were recently used (still hot)."

Mercury says that new image-processing software is usually developed and tested in labs, on computer clusters connected by standard networks - and then rewritten to run on systems in the field. The new architecture aims to cut development time by allowing deployed computers to appear to the software as a cluster of compute nodes on an IP network.

Mercury introduced the new architecture at the 2008 Joint Symposium of the Army Team C4ISR in Atlantic City, N.J.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.