A group of four Naval Postgraduate School students developed a new tool to map enemy positions on the battlefield. The frequency-based algorithm for spatial and temporal clustering analysis with thresholds, or FASTCAT, analyzes and maps electronic signals to help commanders identify and target enemy locations. (Luke Kitterman/U.S. Air Force)
NATO recently handed four military students 34,000 scrambled battlefield signals, and within two weeks they turned the noise into a map of enemy positions.
The feat pulled off by the team of U.S. and allied officers enrolled in the Naval Postgraduate School introduces a potential new tool for commanders who need to see through the fog of electronic war.
NATO tasked the team of four students with making sense of tens of thousands of synthetic electromagnetic emission data points that were representative of those detected on the Ukrainian battlefield over a period of three months.
The tool was developed by U.S. Navy Lt. Elliot Kim and Lt. j.g. Taylor Haist, U.S. Army Maj. Cody Ward and Australian air force squadron leader Darby Nelson.
Called the frequency-based algorithm for spatial and temporal clustering analysis with thresholds, or FASTCAT, the model visualizes its findings by presenting them on a map application with a dashboard that allows users to refine and zero in on targets, the school said in a statement Tuesday.
As word got around, the four students were summoned to brief an alliance team operating in Bydgoszcz, Poland, that is focused on drawing battlefield lessons from the war in Ukraine.
U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Jeffrey W. Hughes, a top deputy at NATO Supreme Allied Command Transformation, said the students were able “to move quickly on a complex, real‑world challenge.”
A team of Naval Postgraduate School students briefs NATO officials in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Dec. 9, 2025. (Rob Froberg/U.S. Army)
“Ukraine is producing an unprecedented body of contemporary combat data and hard‑won battlefield insight,” Hughes said in a Tuesday statement from the school. “Harnessing that evidence through the unique, defense‑focused academic environment at Naval Postgraduate School allows us to turn lessons identified into lessons applied,” .
The project underscores a growing push to build battlefield tools that enable commanders on the ground to quickly make sense of massive amounts of data and shorten the time it takes to target enemy positions.
U.S. forces also have been grappling with how to curate data in a way that gives commanders an edge against adversaries.
The students’ product came at the behest of the headquarters for NATO’s transformation command, which is on the hunt for solutions that better figure out the origin of unknown signals.
Seeing battlefield threats on one screen has been something Army commanders at the small-unit level also have been eager to incorporate into their arsenals.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Rob Froberg, who served as a military adviser to the team of four, described how the tool could be used to locate an air defense team tracking a target.
“A sensor signals a fire coordinator that signals a shooter,” Froberg said in the statement. “And then the shooter sends back a note saying, ‘Hey, I shot the target.’ And the sensor will check to see if it did and if the target is still operational. They’re all talking to each other, so they have a temporal relationship. And they’re talking on the same frequency.”
The statement didn’t elaborate on what the next step could be for NATO when it comes to developing the tool into something for real-world use.
However, the project came at virtually no cost and also outperformed a second NATO-contracted effort running in parallel that had substantially more funding and time for development, the statement said.
