Soar Technology, Inc. (SoarTech) has been awarded a contract to support a United States Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC) project to develop technology for the rapid assessment of airfield damage. SoarTech will develop a user aid, called Airfield Response Assistant (AiRAssist). AiRAssist will encompass semi-automated methods for detecting damage to runways, as well as unexploded ordinance (UXO). AiRAssist will combine SoarTech’s prior capabilities in human machine interfaces, including the Smart Interaction Device (SID) and Computational Situation Awareness (CSA), with computer vision algorithms to efficiently search large areas at a very fine detail.
AiRAssist will facilitate processing large volumes of data, with high accuracy, in a time-constrained environment. The primary challenge for the operator is the combination of a large search area, the small size of damage and objects of interest, and the short time constraints dictated by post-attack operations. AiRAssist will enable the user to interact with the vision algorithms to focus their attention where needed, and adapt them to the current environment.
“This is an exciting new project for SoarTech. It enables us to transition some of the breakthrough work we’ve been doing in the areas of situational awareness and multi-modal interface technologies to help achieve the goal of cutting time for airfield damage assessment. We’re particularly pleased to have AFCEC as our partner and transition agent,” said Dr. Michael van Lent, SoarTech President and CEO.
For more information about this award, please contact Andrew Dallas, adallas@soartech.com
