Airborne Contact Cueing for Panoramic Imagers Navy SBIR FY2013.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2013.1 Topic No.: N131-055 Topic Title: Airborne Contact Cueing for Panoramic Imagers Proposal No.: N131-055-0867 Firm: Toyon Research Corp. 6800 Cortona Drive Goleta, California 93117-3021 Contact: Brian Stieber Phone: (805) 968-6787 Web Site: www.toyon.com Abstract: In an effort to improve the current approach for periscope surveillance detection, the Navy is developing a new panoramic mast video sensor. Utilizing both LWIR and EO technology the sensor will provide a 24 hour operational capability in challenging maritime environments. Advancements address operational necessity for rotating the mast and viewing limitations, however, they do not address additional difficulties operators face in reliably detecting aircraft in large quantities of video data. Ability to reliably detect aircraft targets in EO/IR video would leverage the technology to its full potential and increase the effectiveness of human operators. Relevant algorithms should be both computationally efficient and robust under a full range of operating conditions, including cloud clutter, water droplet clutter, day and night, and weather-driven illumination and temperature variations. Toyon Research corporation proposes a suite of parallelizable algorithms based on statistical appearance and apparent change modeling combined with track-before-detect framework that enables detection of aircraft at the farthest possible standoff distance (fewest pixels on target) allowing operators maximum time for target evaluation and response. Benefits: The successful completion of this research will result in the development optimized software capable of detecting aircraft in high resolution imagery in real-time. This capability will be of great interest for future military systems that rely on the automated processing of surveillance video. For example, the developed technology is expected to benefit current airborne surveillance systems with large volumes of video imagery (Angel Fire, Constant Hawk, ARGUS-IS). Additionally, high performance detection algorithms can be used to detect small aircraft for customs and border patrol and other marine platforms. Other potential government applications include systems requiring image sensor video surveillance, for example; crime fighting, airport traffic analysis, and counter-terrorism applications. Return