$10M to Utah State to Help Ease ISR Bandwidth Crunch
Utah State University Research Foundation, North Logan, Utah, is being awarded $10M for cost-plus-fixed-fee completion task order #0007 under previously awarded contract (N00173-02-D-2003) for research in the area of Time Critical Sensor Image/Data Processing. Specifically, they will research advanced networking, compression/image processing, and ground/control station sensor processing. Under this task order the contractor will be required to support the development and demonstration of hardware and software systems for airborne and ground-based acquisition, recording, screening, dissemination, fusion, and exploitation of multi-INT sensor systems for manned and unmanned reconnaissance and surveillance systems.
This, too, sounds like an excellent future fit for the American RAID surveillance system. Its primary target, however, is the massive bandwidth crunch being created by hundreds of video-equipped UAVs and networked airborne ISR(Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance) systems sending video back to base. Obviously, any system that could improve the links in this chain, from screening and fusion of the information collected into smaller ‘packages,’ to better video compression and processing, to advanced networking, would be a big help. Other firms like Trident Systems are also doing R&D related to bits of this puzzle.
Work will be performed in North Logan, Utah, and is expected to be complete in September 2012. The Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington, DC issued the contract.
