DoD Supercomputer Powers IED-Hunters

DoD Supercomputer Powers IED-Hunters
Popular Mechanics | Logan Ward | January 22, 2008

Half a world away from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, nestled near the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, a 34-year-old electrical engineer is wielding one of the planet's most powerful computers to lend a virtual helping hand to American soldiers. Joshua Fairley's detailed 3-D modeling of war-zone scenes, based at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Miss., has vastly improved the effectiveness of airborne sensors in scoping out deadly ground-based threats.

Deployed in space or on aircraft -- often in UAVs -- electro-optical and infrared sensors scan urban and rural terrain for explosive devices. Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) algorithms then digitally decipher the fuzzy images, picking out the mines from the manholes and the bombs from the bushes. At least that's the hope, with visual clutter triggering regular false alarms. One very time-consuming and expensive way to improve the sensors would be to fly the systems repeatedly, performing case study after case study. Instead, Fairley and his team have used the ERDC's Cray XT3, the Defense Department's second most powerful supercomputer, capable of 40 trillion computations per second, to simulate landscapes from combat and do the case studies in a lab on American soil.

What makes the work stand out is the level of detail they are achieving: By taking into account soil types, plant distribution, species of plants and even the distinct characteristics of those species, Fairley says his team has processed data "literally down to the weeds." Soon, the Army Corps researchers hope to model beneath the ground. Why? "Each plant takes up a certain amount of moisture through its roots," explains Fairley, who once designed sensors for Lockheed Martin. "That moisture could affect localized temperature, which affects the ability to detect a threat."

Fairley then uses the sensors to scan these "synthetic images" for potential hazards, taking note of how well the sensors function under certain weather conditions, at certain times of year and even different times of day. That way he can write complex new algorithms to "teach" the sensors, some of which take thermal readings, to distinguish harmless objects from threats. In one case study, he cut the false alarm rate by 75 percent. Results like that, he says, "will benefit the well-being and health of our war fighters, which is a reason why I get up in the morning and come to work."


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160191,00.html?wh=wh

The Army Corp of Engineers Supercomputer was SUPPOSED to be used to do CFD simulations of waterways projects in the United States... like, say, levies in New Orleans.

That's how it was sold to congress. And also why it was a virtual duplication of the NASA Ames facility (the NAS or Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation facility).

Well, I hope it saves a few soldiers... it's not saving anyone from the next flood event. Thanks, George!!!