Charles River Analytics Develops Satellite Image Processing System for NASA

by | Jan 15, 2014

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 7, 2014”Charles River Analytics, a developer of intelligent systems solutions, announces a contract to develop a system for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The system known as DIPSARS, for the Discovery of Interesting Patterns and Semantic Analysis in Remote Space, detects large-scale environmental events from satellite imagery. These events include volcanic eruptions, storms, and algae blooms, captured in images such as those produced from the NASA Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite.

The volume of satellite and rover data collected by NASA has grown dramatically as new missions are launched with ever-increasing sensor payloads. The data to be processed by DIPSARS includes different scenes and objects that research scientists and mission controllers use to determine which areas should be explored further. The sheer volume of data, combined with bandwidth limitations, is driving a need to process and analyze which data is relevant, important, and interesting enough to prompt follow-on action, all in real-time onboard the spacecraft.

DIPSARS leverages Charles River's Object Detection Framework (ODF), a capability developed over several years to address the computer vision market. The ODF is a generalized detection framework that can detect objects and phenomena in image data in real-time. DIPSARS will expand the use of our state-of-the art detection framework to new platforms and data, said Tom Moore, the lead software engineer for the project.

We're excited by the potential of this project to enable autonomous decisions by satellites, resulting in fewer missed opportunities to observe significant events, said Daniel Stouch, Principal Investigator on the project. It will also free up valuable communications bandwidth that can then be used to transmit data of interest back to NASA and the research community in a more timely fashion.

To learn more about DIPSARS or our other current projects or capabilities, contact us.

About Charles River Analytics: Since 1983, Charles River Analytics has been applying computational intelligence technologies to develop mission-relevant tools and solutions to transform our customers’ data into knowledge that drives accurate assessment and robust decision-making. Charles River continues to grow its technology, customer base, and strategic alliances through research and development programs for the DoD and the Intelligence Community, addressing a broad spectrum of mission areas and functional domains, including: sensor and image processing, situation assessment and decision aiding, human systems integration, and cyber analytics. These efforts have resulted in a series of successful products that support continued growth in our core R&D contracting business, as well as the commercial sector. Charles River became an employee-owned company in 2012, to set the stage for the next-generation of innovation, service, and growth.

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