General Dynamics Robotics Facility Opens in Pittsburgh
1/27/2006

WESTMINSTER, Md. – General Dynamics Robotic Systems (GDRS), a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics Land Systems, has opened an Autonomous Perception Research facility in Pittsburgh, Pa. The facility will add significant imaging and data processing capabilities to GDRS. General Dynamics Land Systems (Sterling Heights, Michigan) is a division of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).

More than a dozen highly skilled engineers and scientists from the Pittsburgh area work at the Autonomous Perception Research facility.

“The Pittsburgh facility’s expertise in automated sensor analysis, perception and exploitation, including signal, image, and video processing and multi-sensor exploitation of ladar and optical sensors, will give General Dynamics Robotic Systems an edge in the rapidly developing field of ‘C4ISR’ for autonomous systems,” said Scott Myers, president of General Dynamics Robotic Systems. Advancements related to C4ISR, which stands for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, are a top priority of the Department of Defense.

“The workforce’s experience with robust systems for automated processing of sensor data from space via satellite, from unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and from unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), increases our ability to enable real-time tactical and strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for our customers,” Myers said.

Robert Mitchell, Ph.D., director of the General Dynamics Robotic Systems Autonomous Perception Research facility added, “Prior to joining General Dynamics these individuals have developed a high-speed system for processing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the Global Hawk UAV, as well as the manned U-2 aircraft. The group’s expertise also includes maritime video and image processing.”

The engineers and scientists at the General Dynamics Robotic Systems Autonomous Perception Research facility have also previously developed systems maritime scene segmentation, water/land boundary estimation, landmark and floating object detection and analysis, automatic boat detection, tracking, classification and robust localization through fused sensor data.

With a long history of collaboration with academic colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Maryland, Rice University, and the University of Pittsburgh, the General Dynamics Robotic Systems Pittsburgh group has contracted with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Research Laboratory, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Office of Naval Research, and National Reconnaissance Office.