You are here

Attention-Based Vision for Autonomous Vehicles

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Navy
Contract: N00014-14-P-1169
Agency Tracking Number: N141-076-0801
Amount: $149,827.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: N141-076
Solicitation Number: 2014.1
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2014
Award Year: 2014
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2014-05-05
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2015-09-05
Small Business Information
20452 Scioto Terrace
Ashburn, VA 20147
United States
DUNS: 000000000
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 David Tolliver
 Principal Investigator
 (412) 983-3558
 dtolliver@novateurresearch.com
Business Contact
 Khurram Hassan-Shafique
Title: Member / Chief Scientist
Phone: (703) 509-0069
Email: kshafique@novateurresearch.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

This SBIR Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of novel biologically-inspired visual attention models for on-board exploitation of sensor data streams to enable autonomous missions in complex unknown environments. The key innovation in this effort is a principled and biologically plausible computational model for visual attention that integrates both bottom-up (unsupervised) and top-down (context and task-driven) saliency to guide attention. The proposed model enables onboard UGV perception systems to perform context-based and task-driven identification and temporally consistent labeling of objects of interest in real-time. The attention model will enable UGV systems to i) efficiently process incoming sensory data, ii) identify salient features in data streams, iii) automatically learn task relevance from observations, iv) adapt to new scenarios, and v) use spatio-temporal context and task relevance to improve recognition performance in complex environments. The Phase I effort will include; development of proposed attention framework, solution of UGV problems using the models, quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the proposed technologies, and demonstration of proof of concept using real-world data from multiple use-cases. The project will benefit from the UCSDs expertise in visual attention and salience and Novateur Research Solutions experience in sensor exploitation and onboard processing.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

US Flag An Official Website of the United States Government