The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has launched a multi-year research effort aimed at expanding wide-area satellite imagery technologies.
According to a press release from IARPA, the Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique (SMART) program “will automate broad-area search of multi-source satellite imagery to detect, monitor and characterize the progression of dynamic processes such as heavy construction or crop growth.”
The SMART program aims to develop tools to execute broad-area searches over diverse geographic areas and environments, and detect construction while using time-series spectral imagery.
“Current manual exploitation methods do not scale well with the data volumes we’re receiving, and there’s the problem of simultaneously analyzing data from past, current and future space-based systems,” said IARPA Program Manager Jack Cooper. “SMART innovations in data fusion and machine learning techniques will enable automated broad area search at unprecedented temporal resolution and area coverage.”
