WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. military is trying to take some of the guess work out of the hazardous urban battlefield.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking techniques to automatically analyze electro-optical and light-detection and ranging (LIDAR) imagery of objects in urban areas down to the 1-meter level and recognize the shapes before it is even delivered to a human analyst.
The Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology program is meant to improve 100 times the productivity of human analysts who are mapping urban battlegrounds and providing intelligence to troops.
The program would exploit imagery generated by both air and ground surveillance assets that collect data on a large scale -- in the hundreds of kilometers -- to create a far more accurate understanding of possible hazards to individual soldiers in a dense urban environment.
While much attention is being put on developing surveillance micro-vehicles for use by troops for their unique requirements, the URGENT program is attempting to put imagery that is already being generated to use on the tactical level.
The technology could be used to monitor neighborhoods for changes -- the emplacement of car bombs, mines or improvised explosive devices, for instance -- or to map potential hazards on the battlefield prior to an operation.
DARPA will hold an industry conference Feb. 1 in Arlington to solicit technological solutions.
