Dismounted Identification Friend or Foe (DIFF)

"The identification of dismounted infantry or paramilitary forces from nearby civilians is a task that currently requires direct human intervention to accomplish. With the increasing emphasis on use of UAVs as a force multiplier and the increasing desireto keep vital combat assets out of threat envelopes, a need exists for an autonomous method to discriminate between hostile and nonhostile individuals in a given area. ORINCON proposes to validate the ability of three critical technologies to support thedifferentiation of friendly from hostile individuals and quantify the degree of accuracy achieved in the discrimination of friends from foes. The elements that will be explored are: motion pattern analysis to separate groups of hostile targets based uponcooperate behavior patterns; signature analysis to isolate hostile individuals based upon equipment carried and individual motion cues; and techniques for accrual of evidence over time to discriminate friend versus foe from multiple clues. At the end ofPhase I, we will show how each of these technologies support the identification mission and demonstrate the mutually supporting nature of these elements. This will lead to the development of a robust dismounted identification system prototype in Phase II.This research will lead to a capability to classify dismounted individuals as hostile or neutral. This ability will directly translate to improvements in force protection for small u