Technology Sectors
U.S. Army funds Kitware to continue developing its ‘human activity detection’ software
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The U.S. Army’s R&D Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland plans to award a sole source contract to Kitware, Inc. to continue its development of a cutting-edge video analysis capability called “Human Activity Detection in Wide Area Video,” or HADWAV.
No dollar value was identified for the follow-on contract.
“Kitware, Inc. possesses the specific combination of knowledge and experience in this type of technology as well as DoD doctrine necessary for developing the technology,” said an Army announcement on Feb. 9.
Based in upstate Clifton, NY, Kitware received an $11 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency last October to lead Phase II of its Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool (VIRAT) program.
The VIRAT system is “a revolutionary video analysis capability that filters and prioritizes massive amounts of archived and streaming video based on events; presents the high-value intelligence content clearly and intuitively to video analysts; and results in substantial reductions in analyst workload while increasing the quality and accuracy of intelligence yield,” said a news release issued by Kitware on Oct. 4, 2010.
Its VIRAT system is particularly focused on analyzing video streams sent back from Predator drones, which can fly over battlefields (in Afghanistan or Iraq) or along porous international borders (such as hundreds of miles of unpatrolled boundaries between the U.S. and Mexico.)
[In a completely separate action, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on Feb. 4 that it intends to issue a firm fixed price contract to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., of Poway, CA, for three additional Predator B unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for border surveillance purposes.]
“VIRAT automatically extracts descriptors of events and human actions in the video, emitting real-time alerts of events of interest,” the company explained in its release last October. “The system also indexes the descriptors into a database to enable subsequent search for similar and related events. Specific examples of distinguishable events range from single-person (walking, limping, gesturing, etc.) and person-to-person (meeting, following, gathering, etc.) behaviors to person-vehicle interactions, among others.”
Kitware was selected following a competitive solicitation run at Aberdeen in 2009 by the Army’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office. The latest sole source award to Kitware is intended to advance the work already accomplished under its original Army contract, says the notice.
Further information about the award to Kitware is available from Patricia Hensley at 410-306-2088.
