Ministry of Defence

ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance) is the generation of information that underpins situation awareness, threat assessment and decision making. The essential purpose of ISTAR investment is to get the right information to the right people at the right time, in order to support decision making and inform the next cycle.

This call represents the first tranche of a series of Centre for Defence Enterprise calls, with Tranche 1, named Novel Integrated ISTAR, aimed at specific challenges to be demonstrated in February 2012. This first demonstration will focus on Layered ISTAR and provides an opportunity for showcasing Novel Integrated ISTAR to address the following areas:

• Autonomous smart cueing of sensors and information sources;
• Automated object recognition including a measure of confidence;
• Automated association of geographic location with airborne or elevated imagery to detect, segment and identify the target in the imagery;
• Automated association of features from one set of airborne or elevated imagery with the same features in a different set of imagery (taken at altitude, slant angle and resolution different to that of the first); and,
• Autonomous sensor platform for tactical Situational Awareness, with the goal of on-board processing of sensory inputs to produce critical information (e.g. threat locations) rather than production of data requiring manual analysis (e.g. video).

Proposals for ‘Novel Integrated ISTAR’ for demonstration in February 2012 are invited from industry and academia, particularly those working within sensor signal processing and other related areas of research.

The competition will launch at a seminar at Cardiff University on 8^th September 2011. The event will also provide the opportunity to question leading military and technical experts from the centre and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

Please note it is necessary to register for this seminar at:

http://www.science.mod.uk/events/event_detail.aspx?eventid=134

Ministry of Defence

ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance) is the generation of information that underpins situation awareness, threat assessment and decision making. The essential purpose of ISTAR investment is to get the right information to the right people at the right time, in order to support decision making and inform the next cycle.

This call represents the first tranche of a series of Centre for Defence Enterprise calls, with Tranche 1, named Novel Integrated ISTAR, aimed at specific challenges to be demonstrated in February 2012. This first demonstration will focus on Layered ISTAR and provides an opportunity for showcasing Novel Integrated ISTAR to address the following areas:

• Autonomous smart cueing of sensors and information sources;
• Automated object recognition including a measure of confidence;
• Automated association of geographic location with airborne or elevated imagery to detect, segment and identify the target in the imagery;
• Automated association of features from one set of airborne or elevated imagery with the same features in a different set of imagery (taken at altitude, slant angle and resolution different to that of the first); and,
• Autonomous sensor platform for tactical Situational Awareness, with the goal of on-board processing of sensory inputs to produce critical information (e.g. threat locations) rather than production of data requiring manual analysis (e.g. video).

Proposals for ‘Novel Integrated ISTAR’ for demonstration in February 2012 are invited from industry and academia, particularly those working within sensor signal processing and other related areas of research.

The competition will launch at a seminar at Cardiff University on 8^th September 2011. The event will also provide the opportunity to question leading military and technical experts from the centre and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.