Researchers developing analysis tool to track anomalous behavior

  • Published
  • By Elizabeth Long
  • 711th Human Performance Wing
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFNS) --  Researchers in the Anticipate and Influence Behavior Division's Behavior Modeling Branch, part of the 711th Human Performance Wing's Air Force Research Laboratory, also known as 711th HPW/RHXB, are developing an analysis tool that will help military specialists discover and track unusual behavior in a city setting to help avert criminal or dangerous behavior that could have deadly consequences.

The CityBeat Project incorporates direct sensors, such as a camera, and indirect sensors, such as social networking, to assist a person in behavior evaluation.

"The name CityBeat is analogous to the police officer who walks a beat," explained Rik Warren, a CityBeat Project technical advisor here. "The officer knows his or her beat -- the territory, the trouble areas, the family-friendly areas, and which streets have drug activity. Knowing this makes it very easy for the beat cop to spot something unusual."

CityBeat is being designed to ascertain normal activity baselines in a community and to find unusual patterns of behavior.

"If anything occurs other than those normal types of patterns, those rhythms of life, then an analyst might determine that there is something interesting going on that is worth investigating," Mr. Warren said.

The researchers in the 711th HPW/RHXB are developing CityBeat at the Tec^Edge Innovation and Collaboration Center in Dayton, Ohio. The branch received a great deal of research assistance from several summer student interns from colleges and universities.  

The students were funded by the Department of Homeland Security; the Department of Defense's Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation Scholarship for Service Program; and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Program.

"The students have been tremendous," Mr. Warren said. "Their energy, their knowledge, their diverse backgrounds really helped us. They generate ideas and are very enthusiastic about developing these ideas."

"Where we started at the beginning of the summer and where we are now have changed because of the students," said John Duselis, the CityBeat project manager. "Rik and I had mapped out the direction of the research that we were going to pursue at the beginning of the summer, and the students really drove where we wound up at the end of their internships."

One of the projects the students researched involved integrating social networking sites like Twitter into the CityBeat system.

"All tweets are publicly available," Mr. Warren said. "There are ways for people to pick up these tweets and try to form various patterns. The students have been tweeting and tracking their tweets using various software to establish patterns."

Both Mr. Warren and Mr. Duselis said CityBeat will be a valuable tool in assisting the warfighter.

"Part of the Anticipate and Influence Behavior Division's mission is to increase the effectiveness of our military's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance," Mr. Warren said. "CityBeat is one such ISR program. We are exploring the value of these sensors, such as a video camera, as well as sensors that are more social, such as Twitter and Facebook. Our hope is that we can integrate these different kinds of sensors and package them in such a way that an analyst can use them for ISR to help prevent disastrous events from occurring."