Army funding award

Charles River Analytics Awarded Army Funding for AFICIONADO Development

Software developer Charles River Analytics announced that it has been awarded funding by the Army to develop an improved system for intelligence collection planning and management. The deal calls for continued development on a platform to remove human error as well as to speed up the process of gathering critical information, CRA said Tuesday.

In a statement, CRA said the award will see the creation of a platform called Achieving Federated ISR Collection through Intelligent Optimization and Natural AI-supported Decision Operations. AFICIONADO is envisioned to improve individual use and enable cross-unit coordination through the use of artificial intelligence optimization techniques and best practices in human-machine interface design, the company explained.

Tyler Mayer, a scientist at CRA and AFICIONADO’s principal investigator, said the product being developed will provide a unified workspace for information collection planning across echelons and planning groups. He added that it will serve as a catalyst for changing the extremely laborious manual workflow into a streamlined, collaborative one.

CRA goes on to say that at the individual level, AFICIONADO will provide an interactive workspace for collection managers to specify their requirements, objectives and available resources. At the enterprise level, the platform’s arbitrage agent will monitor plans generated by many units, identify opportunities to improve efficiency and recommend coordinated plans for collection managers to consider.

AFICIONADO will enable coordinated mission management for the Army and its partners in joint missions by improving the way intelligence is collected, the company said.