Charles River Analytics’ Risk Assessment Approach Progresses With New Air Force Funding

The Air Force Civil Engineer Center has awarded Phase II Small Business Innovation Research funding for Charles River Analytics’ Real-Time Assessment and Decision Interactive Toolkit, which is being developed to support critical U.S. Air Force security decisions. 

The toolkit, which uses hybrid artificial intelligence approaches, is designed to aggregate real-time data from different sources for a more comprehensive look at risks. It is designed to separate noise from the gathered information and factors in vital elements to establish situation awareness for decision-making responses to threats. 

According to Nicolette McGeorge, Charles River scientist and READI’s principal researcher, insights drawn from potentially unrelated data can help security officers understand the courses of action and the response priorities on threats.  

In READI’s Phase I, Charles River used its Scruff probabilistic programming solution to create risk assessment models and action steps to address identified domain threats. Phase II will widen the focus to threats from natural disasters, including wildfires and hurricanes, Charles River said Tuesday.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based software company has developed a toolkit related to READI in a NASA-funded initiative dubbed WIMPLE, a hybrid AI-based solution for wildfire risk analysis, mitigation and decision-making support. In February, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency also awarded Charles River an SBIR Phase II contract to develop a cross-domain collaboration software and AI coach.