DARPA Sharpens Focus On Video Analysis Technology

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The Department of Defense (DOD) is developing video-analysis technology for detecting activity from a variety of image-capturing sensors, a tool that would enable the military to better observe dangerous behavior during combat as it happens.

The Defense Advanced Research Project (DARPA) is working on ways to analyze large amounts of data from multiple video sensors specifically to make out people's movements. It's a problem that historically has been difficult to tackle merely with analysis by the human eye alone when it comes to large amounts of raw video footage, according to the agency.

The new technologies are meant to be used to help military analysts who are already tasked with analyzing video data to do their jobs better.

"The objectives of [the technologies] are not to replace human analysts, but to make them more effective and efficient by reducing their cognitive load and enabling them to search for activities and threats quickly and easily," said Mita Desai, DARPA program manager for VIRAT and PerSEAS, in a statement.

One of the technologies being developed--the Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool (VIRAT)--is focused on identifying isolated actions in a small geographic area from full-motion video from military platforms such as Predator or Aerostats, according to DARPA.

Analysts using the tool can either monitor a live video feed for specific actions of interest or search archives of occurrences in the past for the same. To search through video, analysts use a video clips as the input query, according to DARPA.

While VIRAT has a narrow focus, the Persistent Stare Exploitation and Analysis System (PerSEAS) program analyzes video from a broader perspective over a longer period of time to help the military detect more complex threats, according to DARPA. The existing military sensors PerSEAS works with include Constant Hawk, Gorgon Stare, and ARGUS-IS.

While the two technologies are different and have different aims, PerSEAS leverages some algorithms from VIRAT, the agency said.

An initial prototype of VIRAT is available that works in two modes--forensic, which allows analysts to identify activities in thousands of hours of archived, untagged data, and streaming, which can highlight actions as a video download is being viewed. Development on PerSEAS is still under way, but the technology will be field tested soon, according to DARPA.

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