Friend or Foe Technology In The Cities
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The US DoD wants to develop surveillance technology for the urban setting. The Pentagon is looking to fund research into technological capabilities that can tell the difference between someone who is just waiting around for the bus and someone who poses a threat — like someone scoping out a target. They want to enlist this technology for autonomous vehicles. The Pentagon is looking to outfit autonomous vehicles with cutting-edge surveillance tech like AI and computer vision to automatically detect and assess if someone is a threat without relying entirely on soldiers to make that determination.
According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), “human-based inference – replete with cognitive bias and imperfect memory – remains our most reliable method for determining who may be a threat and who is merely going about their day.”With this recognition, DARPA is putting together a research opportunity and incubator to equip autonomous vehicles with the most sophisticated surveillance capabilities for use in urban settings.
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DARPA’s Non-Escalatory Engagement to reduce Dimensionality (NEED) incubator describes the desire to develop “tools to accurately distinguish among threats and non-threats based solely on passively observed behaviors.”Researchers will be asked to develop a set of Engagements that aerial and/or ground vehicles will carry out to test a specific question (akin to a hypothesis) about whether an individual or group poses a threat in an urban setting.
For example, a human soldier may walk-up and talk to a person of interest on the street to see what they’re up to. But an autonomous vehicle outfitted with high-tech surveillance equipment may approach the person in an attempt to block their view while calculating if personX is waiting for a bus, or if personX is collecting information about a US installation, all while evaluating every move they make to see if they are a threat.
Also, the Pentagon is looking to avoid escalating situations that irritate locals and put them on edge when all hell breaks loose. According to DARPA, “In an open urban environment such interactions can interfere with daily activities and irritate locals. Even minor interactions such as an audio hail are escalatory; they exacerbate the inference challenge by negatively changing the locals’ behavior and increasing the chance of false positives, as reported on by sociable.co.
Prepared to dive into the world of futuristic technology? Attend INNOTECH 2023, the international convention and exhibition for cyber, HLS and innovation at Expo, Tel Aviv, on March 29th-30th
Interested in sponsoring / a display booth at the 2023 INNOTECH exhibition? Click here for details!
