Published: January 24, 2008 12:58 am      

WVHTC creating system to detect terrorist threats

FAIRMONT — Through a $4.1 million project, the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation is creating a system to detect terrorist threats.

In October 2006, the WVHTC Foundation’s Scientific Research Group was selected for the competitive project. After going through government contracting procedures, the group finally received the award in Sept. 2007 and has been working on the endeavor for about four months.

Mary Ann Harrison, Ph.D., senior scientist at the foundation, came up with the concept for the Tactical Analysis of Video Imagery, or TAVI, project. The goal of the project, which is funded by the Office of Naval Research, is to develop automated video surveillance without the need for a human operator.

After the three-year project is completed, it will go into an integration phase for a couple years. Within five years, TAVI could be used by warfighters in Iraq or other locations, Harrison said.

She explained that the system uses cameras to identify a security threat. Once the camera pinpoints someone committing a suspicious act, it zooms in on him or her and does face recognition. The system then sends an image to a database and determines whether it matches a previous suspect. TAVI will eventually be able to monitor the suspicious person’s interactions with others, and overtime deduce the organizational structure of terrorist or insurgent groups and stabilize them, Harrison said.

“One thing that makes it important is that it’s completely automated and it doesn’t require a person,” she said. “It doesn’t require any human interaction or intervention. It’s very different from this traditional flow of information in the military.”

TAVI has the ability to monitor crowd activities and look for unusual behavior. The initial demo system is currently set up, and the security threat software is integrated with the face recognition software. About 40 volunteers have agreed to participate in data collection during lunchtime. Harrison said the team hopes to demonstrate its first iterations of the system by June.

The Scientific Research Group of the WVHTC Foundation is the prime contractor for the project. The group is also overseeing five different organizations and researchers with expertise related to long-term intelligence gathering.

Although the technologies that TAVI deals with are already being used to some degree to fight the war on terrorism, these components haven’t been combined into one application until now, Harrison said. A “social network analysis” like this has never been applied to video and opens up a new way of monitoring activity.

“I think when we wrote the proposal, we may not have even realized how unique this is,” said Brian Lemoff, Ph.D., director of physical sciences and technology at the WVHTC Foundation.

He said the capabilities of the surveillance camera system will be of great value to the military and will save lives.

The Scientific Research Group’s goal is to be a nationally recognized research organization that sustains itself through highly competitive projects, Lemoff said. Out of more than 200 submissions, the WVHTC Foundation was one of 11 selected for this work. The foundation was chosen for the award because of Harrison’s original idea and the involvement with area contractors, he said.

“This is a very visible project,” Lemoff said. “It means that we really have an opportunity to shine on a national (scope). This will lead to more programs.”

E-mail Jessica Legge at jlegge@timeswv.com.