ISTAR Concepts and Solutions - Drone Wars UK · 08/09/2011 · ISTAR Concepts & Solutions CDE Call Presentation ... standard datasets ... Centre for Defence Enterprise Portal

ISTAR Concepts & Solutions

CDE Call PresentationCardiff, 8th September 2011

FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Dstl is part of the Ministry of Defence

© Crown CopyrightDstl 2011 FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Today’s Brief

• Introduction to the programme– The opportunities

• ISTAR challenges– The context

• Requirements for Novel Integrated ISTAR Solutions– The questions



ISTAR Concepts & Solutions (ICS)

• MOD research programme

• Dstl Programme Office - ISTAR & Sensors Domain

• New 5-year research programme

• Collaboration between UK Government, Industry & Academia and allies

• Focus on short, medium and long term capability solutions

• Intention to run a yearly CDE themed call

• Exploitation roadmaps established across the domain



Exploit &Prioritise

Test &Evaluate

Identify& Design

Systems Concepts Experimentation

Validated Solutions

Research Requirements

Modelling & simulation

Quick wins

TechnologyConcepts

ISTAR Concepts & Solutions



Industry engagement (to March 2012)

• I&S Domain Industry Day (invitation)– IET, Savoy Place, London , 20th Sept

• Prime contractor support (pilot year only)– Quick start

– Embedded team, experimentation & infrastructure

– FATS competition

• Technology Concepts– CDE Call (‘Novel Integrated ISTAR Solutions’)

– Today’s Briefing (Cardiff on 8th September)



Enduring Framework (2012-16)

• Current pilot year is intended to be 1st of 5– Establish way of working, quick start

• Collaborative framework to cover years 2-5

• Strategy under development to cover:– Industry construct

• Advertise, compete and establish by April 2012– Consortium supply anticipated



Summary

• Concept design

• Assessment

• Experimentation

• Applied R&D

• Prioritisation & context

• Coherence & coordination

• Cross-DLOD implications

• Exploitation through applications areas



ISTAR Concepts and Solutions

Context & challenges



Response to the threat• Needs to easily adapt to the unplanned or unexpected• Constrained by poor / incomplete / intermittent

information and environment conditions• Typically operates with limited connectivity /

cooperation between disadvantaged users

Revolution in Threat • No longer characterised by physical properties

(size, shape, velocity, etc) –• Now characterised by intent and activity

• No longer geographically clustered –• Now disparate, sparse and hidden

• Attacks are no longer coordinated and focussed –• Now seemingly random with high intermittency

Military Operations

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Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance

CollectDisseminate

Direct

Process

ISTAR

The Decision Cycle



Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance

Integrated ISTAR has the potential for:• More rapid traversal of DCPD loops• Maintaining Decision cycle performance with minimal operator input• Less reliance on pre-programmed plans• Reduction in Information overload

Need to maximise:• Situational Awareness• Timeliness, accuracy and flexibility of decision making• Ability to operate under uncertainty, information loss and

contradiction

ISTARIn Practice:• Massive Complexity• Multiple simultaneous Decision

Cycles operating• Multiple interrelated and

parallel decisions taking place



To demonstrate remote and autonomous sensing and collecting capabilities;

To demonstrate association and combination of multiple off-the-shelf (OTS) sensor modalities to improve detection, tracking, recognition and identification of targets;

To demonstrate autonomous (or with minimal analyst intervention) cross-modality cueing of sensors and information sources;

To demonstrate techniques and algorithms which enable inference and decision making across information from multiple platforms, between “hard” and “soft” information sources, over multiple ISTAR layers with multiple information collection times;

To demonstrate improved endurance/persistence/coverage with smaller, lighter, cheaper and lower-power sensors

Challenges in the ISTAR area



Tranche 1: Novel Integrated ISTAR Solutions

The requirement

Tranche 1: Novel Integrated ISTAR Solutions

The requirement



What do we want?• Innovative solutions to ISTAR challenges

– Technology Readiness Level 3 → 5– Break point with demonstration in Feb 2012– Ideally (loosely) integrated with February

experiment– Low cost technology (e.g. off the shelf sensors)

• What do we not want?– Market surveys– Requirements capture– 3 year PhDs

• Assessed against:– Builds Critical Technical Capability to meet UK

Needs, Scientific Quality / Innovation– Military relevance, Likelihood of Exploitation– Science, Innovation and Technology Risk



Topics of interest

1. Autonomous Sensor and Information Cueing

2. Accurate, automatic 3D map generation

3. Automatic (assisted) target recognitiona) Multi-mode sensor approach to address difficult targets

(vehicles)

b) Assisted recognition of people and gestures in urban scenario

4. Autonomy for Tactical Situational Awareness



1. Autonomous Sensor and Information Cueing• Smart use of sensors to optimise coverage (e.g. switch

to sensors that have a better view of a new detection)– To reduce cognitive burden, – To reducing information overload– For information prioritisation– To provide the correct information for the current task

• There are at least 3 key elements:

1. A ‘local tactical picture’ – a single construct that harmonises and contains all geospatial information, blue

and red force positions, etc – Track formation and harmonisation from multiple sensor detections (different

modalities)– Sparse temporal sampling (due to platform revisit or obscuration) is an issue,

therefore there is a need for tagging/ID



1. Autonomous Sensor and Information Cueing

3. Information management (e.g. prioritised threat warning, info appropriate to task)

– ATR – to guide decision making

2. Sensor/platform management– Knowledge of sensor positions and capabilities/errors– Sensor position inaccuracy – Sensor pointing inaccuracy– Decision making and optimisation to assign sensors to tasks– Need for ATR to know what sensor to use– Need to understand environment/weather/clutter/range/target

characteristics, and how they relate to sensors available– Need to interact with human command chain, if using soldier as

sensor, soldier is best ATI asset



2. Accurate, automatic 3D map generation• From airborne imagery or Ground-based (eg 3D street-view)• To support:

– Training, environmental familiarisation– Mission planning and rehearsal

• Identification of points of access and egress– Mission support – line of sight analysis– 3D change detection for threat detection and battle damage

assessment– Image matching for geo-location and navigation– Enable advanced sensor operation in complex environments by

enabling accurate beam propagation modelling • Electronic surveillance, imaging radar, hyper-spectral imaging (shadow

prediction), acoustic



2. Accurate, automatic 3D map generation• Sensor mix and collection fidelity?

– Structure from video, lidar, Inertial Navigation System (INS) requirements, 3D burst illumination (BIL) imaging

• Structure from video offers the simplest sensor solution but also the most complex processing problem.

• Is structure from video sufficiently accurate, can it be automatic?

• Vehicle mounted sensor system– Robust – no moving parts– Cameras + INS + fan lidar?– Exploitation of current camera systems (LSAS)

• 3D model generation from rapidly changing perspective• Automatic removal of movable objects (vehicles & people)



2. Accurate, automatic 3D map generation• Requirement

– Software package (executable) delivered to MOD for assessment– Input

• Airborne video stream• INS and pointing data• 2D map

– Output• 3D point cloud, polygon model, rendered imagery.

• Exploitation of previous research (SEAS DTC)• Automatic alignment and integration of airborne and

ground based 3D imagery• Efficient processing, compression and storage techniques.



3. Automatic (assisted) target recognition• Vehicles and people

• To support– Reduction on workload – enhanced search

– Tracking and target reacquisition

– Removing mobile targets from 3D map generation

– Air-to-ground and ground-to-ground target identification



3. Automatic (assisted) target recognition Vehicles:• Current algorithms can be confused by

– Camouflage

– Shadows

– Clutter

– Obscuration

– Articulation

• Training data– Can be made available where appropriate



3a. Multi-mode sensor approach to address difficult targets (vehicles)• Opportunity to combine (e.g.):

– Visible (colour)

– Thermal

– BIL Silhouette

– BIL 3D

• Requirement:– New ATR concepts/algorithms– Algorithms delivered in a format that can be tested against

standard datasets– Exploitation of multi-mode imaging visible/ infrared and active

imaging 3D/silhouette.



3b. Assisted detection & recognition of people and gestures in urban scenario

• Identify individuals or reacquire targets from their known signature.

• Exploitation of 3D imaging (e.g. X-box “kinect”) sensors

• Simple (robust) person detector

• Sensors mounted on mobile platforms

• Combine (e.g.) face, gait, shape features



4. Autonomy for Tactical Situational Awareness• To reduce the need for detailed intensive supervision of

ISTAR assets

• Sensor/platform management system– Natural language tasking – e.g. search area, examine specific location,

support specific activity– Plan platform position/trajectory for optimum sensor coverage– Process sensor info to extract object info (ATR/ATI, track, count, ID,

etc)– Feed local tactical picture– Re-plan, repeat

• Using knowledge of environment/sensor/target location to plan waypoints/trajectory



4. Autonomy for Tactical Situational Awareness• Control of sensor modality to match object of interest

– E.g. radar GMTI selected to track moving objects

• System should respond to current activity– Support patrol by suggesting surveillance plan to commander

– When patrol is static – choose a perimeter surveillance mode

– When hostile fire is reported, investigate location

• Output should be information not data (e.g. video that requires analysis)

• This call is not about auto-pilots or another UAV, it is about a whole system approach



SummarySummary

• Timescales– Call closes: 27th September 2011 (at 12:00 noon)– Successful proposals (expected) on contract: End

October 2011– Demonstration event: February 2012– Contract ends: 31st March 2012

• Timescales– Call closes: 27th September 2011 (at 12:00 noon)– Successful proposals (expected) on contract: End

October 2011– Demonstration event: February 2012– Contract ends: 31st March 2012

ISTAR Concepts & SolutionsCDE Call Presentation, Cardiff, 8th September 2011

• Proposals for funding must be submitted by 1200 (noon) 27th September 2011 using the Centre for Defence Enterprise Portal (www.science.mod.uk/enterprise). All proposals must be clearly marked “Novel Integrated ISTAR” as a prefix in the title.

• Queries relating to the technical aspects of the call should be addressed to [email protected]

• Queries relating to the submission process (including how to use the Portal) should be addressed directly to the CDE at [email protected] or by phone on 01235 438445.

FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

http://www.science.mod.uk/enterprise�

mailto:[email protected]�

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ISTAR Concepts and Solutions - Drone Wars UK · 08/09/2011 · ISTAR Concepts & Solutions CDE Call Presentation ... standard datasets ... Centre for Defence Enterprise Portal