MDA tasks Charles River Analytics to improve sensor fusion systems
NewsSeptember 02, 2016
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials will continue working with Charles River Analytics in a follow-on contract to improve the performance of sensor fusion systems in ballistic missile defense systems. The two year contract is valued an estimated $1 million.
The contract falls under the Adaptive Management and Mitigation of Uncertainty in Fusion (AMMUF) effort, in which Charles River engineers will work to improve how sensor fusion systems are built and configured.
“AMMUF will help the Missile Defense Agency improve ballistic missile defense by reasoning about the impact of uncertainty on sensor fusion systems at the architectural level, as opposed to the more common algorithm level,” explains Dr. Brian Ruttenberg, the Principal Investigator on AMMUF and Senior Scientist at Charles River. “To reason about such complex systems is tremendously difficult without the aid of innovative tools like Figaro, a probabilistic programming language.”
Dr. Ruttenberg adds, "In AMMUF, we will model the entire fusion process as a probabilistic model using Figaro and reason about the different design and algorithmic decisions that can be made by system engineers. AMMUF will enable system engineers to determine the optimal fusion configuration in different missile defense contexts, giving battlefield operators the most accurate and efficient information about missile threats.”
Figaro is an open-sourced language that enables developers to create tools that help people make better decisions in the face of uncertainty. To learn more on Figaro, click here.
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