BAE Systems to develop WMD detecting technology for DARPA

U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office awarded a contract to BAE Systems to develop technology to help detect weapons of mass destruction (WMD) activity.

The analytics technology will leverage multiple data sources and uses data fusion, adversary modeling, pattern matching, and machine learning techniques to detect and identify indications of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) threats.

BAE Systems will work with partners Barnstorm Research and Washington State University to create technology called MATCH (Multi-info Alerting of Threat CBRNE Hypotheses). MATCH will automatically populate a world graph using data to provide analysts visibility into threat activities in a metropolitan region. MATCH will create hypotheses that identify and characterize threatening CBRNE activity.

“Our technology aims to help analysts close the loop between the analysis of information and the collection of new information to fill in the gaps and provide a comprehensive picture of a potential threat,” Chris Eisenbies, product line director of the Autonomy, Controls, and Estimation group at BAE Systems, said. “Most importantly, our solution automates a process that is currently manually intensive, improving an analyst’s ability to quickly and accurately identify CBRNE activity and, ultimately, helping to protect our country from these significant dangers.”

The project builds on previous work BAE Systems has done for DARPA. The work will be done at the company’s facilities in Burlington, Mass., and Arlington, Va.