Sensing tanks, as well...( What does remote sensing for camouflage...)

The Office of Naval Research's newly developed 200 channel hyperspectral remote sensing capability -- modeled on the human visual/brain "unsupervised" learning system that can distinguish between what's important from what's not -- is now being tested both on the LANDSAT satellite and the F-18 fighter jet as a passive electro-optical, infra-red surveillance system. A range of sensors surveys the scene in question, and incoming data is compared and contrasted using algorithms based on learning neural network processing.

This algorithm, invented by ONR scientists Dr. Harold Szu and James Buss to increase the effectiveness of military surveillance systems, can dig out the nuggets of information needed even if they're buried in 'noise' and clutter. Hyperspectral sensors sweep up enormous quantities of data, but their usefulness has been limited by our ability to pull the important information out of that clutter. The algorithm that processes the data is the important factor.

Systems that do this sort of analysis are called ATR systems automatic target recognition. Last year the Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology asked ONR to look at the potential usage of ATR sensing to improve breast cancer diagnosis. The results of an initial test have been astounding. By demanding greater nutrition through increased blood supply, abnormally reproducing cells generate higher concentrations of heat minute though it might be. Thermal breast scanning has been popular for a number of years, but its use has been limited to a single band, using a single camera. ONR's algorithm is based on the assumption that a smart sensing algorithm requires a brain-like pair of eyes to reveal the composition of information contained in a single pixel image. And, it
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Contact: Gail Cleere
cleereg@onr.navy.mil
703-696-4987
Office of Naval Research
3-Sep-2002