SSCI Wins Navy Grant to Develop Super-Resolution Optics for Tactical Sensors
June 5, 2009 by news
Program Leverages SSCI Leadership in Developing Intelligent Autonomous Unmanned Systems Technology
WOBURN, MA, June 5, 2009 – Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI), a leading developer of technology solutions for defense and industrial suppliers, today announced it has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Navy to develop super-resolution optics for tactical sensors. The Small Business Investment Research (SBIR) grant leverages SSCI’s leadership in technology enabling intelligent autonomous unmanned systems to perform their missions in hostile or challenging environments.
The SBIR program is seeking new technologies to create and capture image data beyond the range of current optical imaging systems used in battlefield situations and with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The technology must capture high-resolution images even in severe atmospheric conditions that can distort imagery such as drastic heat, turbulence or other events that distort visibility. SSCI will develop technology for super-resolving terrestrial scenes, focusing on flexible image reconstruction algorithms exploiting fast, lightweight graphics processing units. The new technology will enhance the performance and ability of intelligent unmanned systems to operate more independently than in the past.
“Being selected for this critical U.S. Navy development program underscores the importance of the technologies SSCI is developing,” said Dr. Raman Mehra, Founder & CEO. “SSCI’s technology platform provides the brains and nervous systems of unmanned vehicles that need to operate collaboratively and seamlessly with manned assets to accomplish missions in challenging environments.”
SSCI is one of the nation’s top recipients of SBIR grants. The funding, for Phase I of the Super-Resolution Optics for Tactical Sensors program, is for an “end-to-end optical imaging system prototype that will produce images at a 1Hz rate, with image resolutions at or beyond the diffraction limit, under severe atmospheric conditions.” SBIR grants are designed to stimulates technological innovation and promote the productivity and economic growth of the nation by engaging private enterprise in productive innovation projects for the U.S. government.
About Scientific Systems Company, Inc.
Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI) pioneers products and technologies that provide the intelligence for unmanned ground, air and maritime vehicles to autonomously and collaboratively accomplish missions in difficult environments. A leading developer of technology solutions for defense and industrial suppliers, SSCI is one of the top 20 recipients of Small Business Innovation Research awards in the U.S. and is recognized by the U.S. Navy and Army for its record of successful technology transitions. A privately held company based in Massachusetts, SSCI collaborates with a network of defense industry prime contractors and consultants, drawing on an accumulated investment of over $150 million in advanced research and development funding.
Contact:
Greg Moeller
(781) 933-5355 x295
gmoeller@ssci.com
SSCI-led team of Lockheed Martin, iRobot and Kairos Autonomi to develop datafusion algorithms for the Office of Naval Research (ONR)
May 18, 2009 by news
WOBURN, MA, May 18, 2009 – The Office of Naval Research today awarded Scientific Systems a Phase I SBIR contract today to develop algorithms that would allow soldiers to more effectively exploit data for tracking multiple targets simultaneously, which is critically important in a broad range of military applications.
Autonomous decentralized multiplatform information fusion in littoral and riverine environments using dispersed and highly disparate heterogeneous sensors on unmanned systems is a major theoretical and practical challenge. Besides highly diverse information types, systems of this kind must deal with potentially large target numbers, closely-spaced targets, potentially dense clutter, limited communication bandwidth and intermittency. The Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI) team proposes a foundational approach, based on five innovations: (1) a multisensor-multitarget likelihood function that encapsulates all relevant information regarding the characteristics of the various sensors situated on various platforms; (2) unified probabilistic representation and Bayesian processing of heterogeneous information types, such as radar, EO/IR images, acoustics, and even inference rules and natural-language statements; (3) a dynamic “tactical importance function” (TIF) that mathematically specifies the meaning of target prioritization (“tactical significance”) for a given theater at any given moment, thus providing a statistical basis for automatic operator alerting; (4) integration of these concepts with track-before-detect filters; and (5)theoretically rigorous incorporation of the constraints due to the platform, terrain, and other communication-systems topologies and constraints. Under this approach, information from disparate fixed or mobile netted sensors, including UAV’s, USV’s and UUV’s, can be adaptively and optimally fused to create a common operational picture, based on a dynamically changing definition of target importance. Our project team includes Lockheed Martin, iRobot, and Kairos Autonomi. Lockheed Martin will provide both technical and commercialization support in the application of data fusion for Distributed Sensor Systems. iRobot and Kairos Autonomi will support fabrication of a prototype system in Phase II.
Data fusion and multi-target tracking is of major importance to the military, and is of critical importance to a broad range of military applications. The algorithms can be directly extended to commercial distributed traffic monitoring for intelligent highway systems, homeland security applications including facilities security, and for law enforcement applications such as border surveillance.
This research work moves Scientific Systems closer to its goal of enabling intelligent autonomy in unmanned systems by improving the man-machine interface between unattended sensors collecting information and the soldiers using the information.
About Scientific Systems Company, Inc.
Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI) pioneers products and technologies that provide the intelligence for unmanned ground, air and maritime vehicles to autonomously and collaboratively accomplish missions in difficult environments. A leading developer of technology solutions for defense and industrial suppliers, SSCI is one of the top 20 recipients of Small Business Innovation Research awards in the U.S. and is recognized by the U.S. Navy and Army for its record of successful technology transitions. A privately held company based in Massachusetts, SSCI collaborates with a network of defense industry prime contractors and consultants, drawing on an accumulated investment of over $150 million in advanced research and development funding.
Contact:
Greg Moeller
(781) 933-5355 x295
gmoeller@ssci.com
Air Force funds SSCI research into Multi-layered Multi-Sensor Dynamic Detection and Discrimination of Dismounts
February 3, 2009 by news
WOBURN, MA, February 3, 2009 – The U.S. Air Force awarded Scientific Systems a Phase I SBIR contract today to develop algorithms that would leverage information collected from heterogeneous sensors to better automate the detection and tracking of enemy foot soldiers.
With the recent changes in threats and methods of warfighting, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) activities have become critical to the military’s efforts to maintain situational awareness and neutralize the enemy’s activities. While a number sensor platforms exist for ISR and many others are currently under development, each sensor alone faces limitations in meeting the ISR criteria of world-wide perspective, fusion, detail and persistent surveillance. However, the complementary nature of these sensors facilitates a synergistic approach to Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and Tracking in ISR scenarios.
To address this need, SSCI proposes the Discrimination using Sensor Collaboration and Verification (DiSCVer) system for dismount detection. SSCI’s approach is an architecture that calls for a high altitude, low resolution sensor generating cues that are passed along to available close-in sensing platforms for high resolution coverage of high priority targets. The proposed system will be flexible with regards to available sensors, thereby making it “future proof,” and will build on existing SSCI capabilities to develop efficient algorithms for dismount detection, density estimation, tracking and discrimination. SSCI also intends to use its Learning Classifier Systems (LCS) to fuse features, contextual information and evidential information obtained from different sensors.
The algorithms developed in this effort will be of great use in many Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems used by the military in the Global War on Terror and by the Department of Homeland Security. The automated algorithms proposed in this effort will help reduce the burden on personnel involved in these applications.
This research work moves Scientific Systems closer to its goal of enabling intelligent autonomy in unmanned systems by automating one aspect of the ISR mission which will help create actionable information that future unmanned systems could exploit.
About Scientific Systems Company, Inc.
Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI) pioneers products and technologies that provide the intelligence for unmanned ground, air and maritime vehicles to autonomously and collaboratively accomplish missions in difficult environments. A leading developer of technology solutions for defense and industrial suppliers, SSCI is one of the top 20 recipients of Small Business Innovation Research awards in the U.S. and is recognized by the U.S. Navy and Army for its record of successful technology transitions. A privately held company based in Massachusetts, SSCI collaborates with a network of defense industry prime contractors and consultants, drawing on an accumulated investment of over $150 million in advanced research and development funding.
Contact:
Greg Moeller
(781) 933-5355 x295
gmoeller@ssci.com
Scientific Systems Names New Vice Presidents for Strategy, Research & Development and Systems Engineering
January 29, 2009 by news
Former iRobot CTO to Head R&D for Defense and Industrial Technology Development Leader
WOBURN, MA, January 29, 2009 – Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI), a leading developer of technology solutions for defense and industrial suppliers, today strengthened its senior management team with the promotion of three executives responsible for strategy and business development, research and development, and systems engineering. Dr. Raman Mehra, Chief Executive Officer, named three new vice presidents: Dr. Andrew Bennett, Vice President of Research & Development; Dr. Sanjeev Seereeram, Vice President of Systems Engineering; and Mr. Kunal Mehra, Vice President of Strategy and Market Development.
“The promotion of these three outstanding individuals reflects the depth and breadth of our expertise and positions Scientific Systems for growth as we continue to leverage our engineering and scientific expertise to deliver advanced solutions for the defense, industrial and commercial markets,” Dr. Mehra said. He noted that Dr. Bennet’s previous experience with the commercial robotics company iRobot and with Walt Disney Imagineering has helped the company improve its efforts to productize its advanced technologies for broader markets. [Read more]
SSCI awarded contract for Geolocation of RF Emitters
January 8, 2009 by news
WOBURN, MA, January 7, 2009 – Under Air Force SBIR topic F083-135, Scientific Systems has been awarded a Phase I contract to develop a radio frequency (RF) transmitter geolocation capability. Expanding SSCI’s partnership with key providers of defense technology, Raytheon Missile Systems will subcontract to Scientific Systems as part of this effort.
The program will produce a system for geolocating, associating, and tracking emitters associated with RF guided threats. The system opportunistically uses sensor measurements, enabling both improved geolocation, and applicability to a wide array of missions and sensor configurations. The system is designed to make use of existing and planned RWR hardware and, as such, incremental costs are kept low and there is a believable route to transition validated technology into practice.
Being funded to do this work moves Scientific Systems closer to its goal of enabling intelligent autonomy in unmanned systems by passively sensing available information which will help create actionable information that future unmanned systems could exploit.
About Scientific Systems Company, Inc.
Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI) pioneers products and technologies that provide the intelligence for unmanned ground, air and maritime vehicles to autonomously and collaboratively accomplish missions in difficult environments. A leading developer of technology solutions for defense and industrial suppliers, SSCI is one of the top 20 recipients of Small Business Innovation Research awards in the U.S. and is recognized by the U.S. Navy and Army for its record of successful technology transitions. A privately held company based in Massachusetts, SSCI collaborates with a network of defense industry prime contractors and consultants, drawing on an accumulated investment of over $150 million in advanced research and development funding.
Contact:
Greg Moeller
(781) 933-5355 x295
gmoeller@ssci.com