Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Exploitation

Current infrared systems either have a narrow field of view, slow frame rates or are low resolution. DARPA's Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Infrared (ARGUS-IR) program will break this paradigm by producing a wide-field-of-view IR imaging system with frame rates and resolution that are compatible with the tracking of dismounted personnel at night. ARGUS-IR will provide at least 130 independently steerable video streams to enable real-time tracking of individual targets throughout the field of view. The ARGUS-IR system will also provide continuous updates of the entire field of view for enhanced situational awareness.

Free-space optics today requires a telescope, bulk lasers with mechanical beam-steering, detectors, and electronics. The Modular Optical Aperture Building Blocks (MOABB) program seeks to design all of these components into a single integrated device. In what would be deemed as the most complex electronic-photonic circuit ever fashioned, the program’s performers will work to create a wafer-scale system that is 100x smaller and lighter than conventional systems and can steer the optical beam 1,000x faster than mechanical components.

Dr. David Doermann joined DARPA in April 2014. His areas of technical interest span language and media processing and exploitation, vision and mobile technologies. He comes to DARPA with a vision of increasing capabilities through joint vision/language interaction for triage and forensics applications.