SBIR Phase I: EI:I2: PANOPTES: A Sytem for Analyzing Big Unstructured Multimedia Data Collections with Applications in Law Enforcement, Manufacturing, and Retail

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop and commercialize a system for indexing, searching, and visualizing large unstructured collections of multimedia data (photos, videos, and audio recordings). In the aftermath of an unexpected disaster such as a terrorist attack, law enforcement is overwhelmed with a vast amount of multimedia assets from many different sources ranging from security cameras to witness smartphones. It is critically important for investigators to quickly and reliably identify potentially relevant footage in these large corpora in order to aid their investigation. This project will develop advanced software to address this need. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project results from its applicability across a number of industries, including law enforcement, defense, manufacturing, and commercial retail. The combined size of these markets in the US is estimated to be roughly $6 trillion. This project addresses the need for automated tools to organize large unstructured collections of multimedia data that are expected to increase in number and size in parallel with the growth in smartphones, wider availability of low-cost recording equipment, and the prevalence of surveillance and security video systems. The current approach for searching these types of data collections will prove inadequate, since it relies on tools that are designed for reviewing a small amount of footage, normally captured by a small number of devices at known points in time and space.