An interesting piece of research coming out of the University of Maryland describes how a computational technique termed geospatial abduction was developed to analyze patterns of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks. The new computational technique, developed by computer science researchers Paulo Shakarian (a PhD student) and Venkatramana (VS) Subrahmanian, along with Maria-Luisa Sapino from the University of Torino (Italy), was codified into a software package called SCARE (Spatio-Cultural Abductive Reasoning Engine). Tests comparing SCARE results with actual placements of IEDs over a 21-month period were positive.

While geospatial abduction and SCARE might seem far removed from the field of robotics, there is application overlap in the area of IED detection and neutralization. The developers of SCARE are quick to note that the software is to be used in combination with other sources of intelligence in IED location process.

The “other sources” of information could be robots equipped with sensors that can detect the chemical signatures of improvised explosive devices, but more likely it would be visual intelligence resulting from aerial reconnaissance. In either case, specially designed, small, mobile ground robots–for example, members of iRobot’s and Foster-Miller’s PackBot and TALON family of robots, respectively–would be called in to neutralize the devices once their locations were determined.