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Curt Davis directs the
Center for Geospatial Intelligence at MU.
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MU
Receives $1.7 Million for
High-Tech Spy Research
By Terry Ganey
A University of Missouri-Columbia facility
involved in high-tech spy research will get a $1.75 million Department
of Defense appropriation to develop intelligence-gathering systems
that crunch massive amounts of electronic data and satellite images.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, announced the appropriation Jan 3. The
money is going to the Center for Geospatial Intelligence
at the MU College of
Engineering.
Geo-spatial intelligence is information collected
through a wide array of technologies to provide greater knowledge
about a potential enemy.
Curt Davis, the center’s director, said
the money will pay faculty, staff and student salaries for research
that improves the processing of data gathered through such systems
as satellite imagery and airborne surveillance.
The center works closely with the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, including its facility in
St. Louis.
As an example, Davis said, the center is developing
a system to allow intelligence analysts to quickly assess electronic
images gathered from satellites and other sources. There are more
data being collected electronically than can be physically analyzed
by the number of people trained to do it, he said.
He said the center is working on a system
in which an analyst could retrieve from a databank an image of
a particular physical feature on the Earth’s surface, much
the way text can be retrieved from the Internet through search
engines such as Google.
The new federal money will finance research
into automated processing of satellite and airborne remote-sensing
data to identify features and to detect and track targets. It
also will help pay for the development of systems that use radar
to detect underground facilities and aid in three-dimensional
urban mapping, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Davis said he and a few other center workers
will be required to get a security clearance for the work.
“In Afghanistan and Iraq, geo-spatial
intelligence has been widely credited with saving many military
and civilian lives because of the superior operational knowledge
it provides military commanders,” Davis said in a prepared
statement. He said the integration of such intelligence with electronic
intercepts has helped locate and capture or kill many terrorist
leaders.
Bond said the mapping and imaging work is
critical to national security in terms of combat support and homeland
security.
The money was included in the defense department
appropriation bill that was approved by the Senate last month.
The center was founded nearly two years ago,
and Davis said it is the only one of its kind operated by a university.
A $1.6 million university appropriation is
funding construction of the center’s laboratories in Laffere
Hall. They are scheduled for completion in August.
Davis said the center is in the process of
forming partnerships with defense contractors that will enable
the transfer of research-and-development discoveries from campus
to the marketplace.
Note: This Jan. 3, 2006, article has been
republished with permission from the Columbia Daily Tribune.
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Last Update:
November 15, 2007
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