SITIS Topic Details |
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| Proposals Accepted: | |
| Program: | SBIR |
| Topic Number: | AF103-042 (AirForce) |
| Title: | Innovative Aids for Combat Identification | Research & Technical Areas: | Information Systems, Sensors, Human Systems |
| The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation. | Objective: | To explore the imagery analyst-aiding technologies for exploiting three-dimensional Laser radar (LADAR) data in the conduct of combat identification (CID)
| Description: | Rapid, accurate, high-confidence, and complete combat identification is a critical capability in holding adversary capabilities at risk. Fratricide must be avoided and collateral damage held to an absolute minimum. Laser radar sensor technology offers great potential in enhancing the USAF’s CID capability. Range, as well as two-dimensional reflectance / emittance target acquisition, data are collected. These three-dimensional data sets, in the visible through infrared (IR) spectra, may support enhanced capabilities in detecting and recognizing (partially) obscured ground targets, defeating adversary deception and denial practices, and otherwise enhancing combat effectiveness. These multidimensional data sets may support estimation of obscuration (i.e., tree crown height) which may be suppressed in display. Similarly, the viewer's eye-point may be translated, rotated and / or zoom with regard to the data set. The imagery analyst must be retained in the target assessment process to ensure human-in-the-loop control. 3D LADAR data is not normally viewed by an operator. Unique challenges are present in the display and exploitation of these data and applied research is required to address them. Analyst-aiding technologies are required to assist the imagery analyst in carrying out CID and other imagery exploitation tasks. Wide area surveillance sensors are likely sources of cuing the LADAR sensor to the locations at which possible targets of interest have been detected. Research is required to explore how this cuing information may best be combined with the resultant data sets to improve analyst confidence in the final target identification (or rejection) declaration. False color or other range-coding strategies must be explored to identify how best to make this information accessible by the analyst. Since assisted target recognition (ATR) is a logical complement to LADAR data collection, research is required to guide the design of the analyst-ATR interface. The ATR approach may include model-based vision algorithms and the research should include exploration of the combination of wire-frame and / or solid geometry models of target identification hypotheses with the sensed data. The possible combination of target cuing and ATR raise research questions regarding the establishment and maintenance of trust in these automated capabilities. Cognitive tasks analyses are required to identify analyst requirements in terms of cognitive demands. Capability-based measures of effectiveness, aligned with analyst cognitive demands, are required to support the evaluation of effects-based target assessment performance.
| PHASE I: Conduct applied research to identify and define opportunities for inserting imagery analyst-aiding technologies appropriate to the exploitation of LADAR data sets in the context combat identification tasks.
| PHASE II: Develop and demonstrate research-derived imagery analyst-aiding capabilities for the conduct of 3D LADAR-based combat identification. Conduct an example of capability evaluation by applying appropriate capability-based measures of effectiveness.
| PHASE III | DUAL USE COMMERCIALIZATION:
Military Application: Highly feasible to the military intelligence community. Enhanced LADAR data exploitation capabilities would be integrated into future spirals of the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System.
Commercial Application: Commercialization of this research is highly feasible especially to the homeland security and homeland defense missions. LADAR exploitation would be applied against border surveillance requirements.
| References: | 1. Air Force Doctrine Document 2-8, Command and Control, 16 Feb 2001 http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/afd2_8.pdf 2. Defense Science Board Task Force Report on Combat Identification http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/combatidentification.pdf 3. Combat Identification http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/cid.htm 4. Pose Independent Target Detection and Recognition System Using 3D Ladar http://www.csail.mit.edu/events/eventcalendar/series_exp.php?show=event&id=22 5. Automated identification and classification of land vehicles in 3D LADAR data http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2004SPIE.5426...92S&db_key=PHY&data_type=HTML&format= 6. Automatic registration and visualization of occluded targets using ladar data http://www.sarnoff.com/products_services/vision/tech_papers/hsu_ladar_data.pdf |
| Keywords: | LADAR, combat identification, imagery analyst, cognitive task analysis, measures of effectiveness, analyst-aiding |
Questions and Answers: |
No questions posed on this topic at this time |
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