SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project begins the development of M-TerraFly, a System and Application Programming Interface, data services and device control, coupling geo-spatial visualization and database technologies with mobile sensor networks and related systems. This System?s initial demonstrable application couples TerraFly with IBM?s CARMEL system of video streaming from airborne and mobile cameras. This application enables the development and promotion of the product in strategic partnership with IBM. CARMEL-TerraFly coupling allows visual geospatial-temporal querying of airborne sensors. The broader product, M-TerraFly, enables coupling of TerraFly with and provision of geospatial interfaces to other technologies. The Product leverages, builds-upon, and benefits from exposure of the team?s TerraFly geospatial technology funded by NSF at Florida International University and transferred to the SBIR firm. This work benefits from the team?s access to talent, servers, and databases at FIU, IBM, and LexisNexis?via partnership facilitated by the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center at Florida International and Atlantic Universities (FIU-FAU I/UCRC). The product transforms the usability of mobile information overload. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project includes applications in disaster management, environmental monitoring, and transportation. The initial application with IBM, CARMEL-TerraFly, enables situation command. The broader system assists disaster control and mitigation and situation control where a large number of stationary, airborne, and vehicle-borne sensors, such as video cameras, are collecting an overwhelming amount of information. The System overcomes the prior state-of-the-art?s inability to query and visualize a multitude of moving objects. The embeddable version of the System enables diverse third-party products. Three large prospective clients have documented their need for this System. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 2011 Geospatial Analytics Report describes DHS applicability of TerraFly-based technology. The project?s team is comprised of scientists, technologists, and business strategists; the team is advised by leadership of IBM, LexisNexis, and other partners. The firm has capital from technology revenues and investors; further funding is expected from governmental and industrial users. The system?s educational module facilitates studies of computing and environment nationwide and within coursework at FIU. The educational module will be disseminated via TerraFly, with its 5M Google-indexed pages and leveraging prior exposure in scientific and popular media, including Fox TV News, NPR, New York Times, USA Today, Science, and Nature.

The innovation is a System and Application Programming Interface, data services and device control, coupling geospatial visualization and database technologies with mobile sensor networks. A product line will be developed, beginning with a map-based streaming media and moving objects video console. Currently available geospatial applications cannot handle real-time, dynamic Big Data. Many government and corporate customers need to combine and analyze information from multiple sources of real-time and historical data. The innovation combines advanced geospatial visualization and analytics technologies with location-based media streaming technology, to produce a map-based streaming media and moving objects video console. This system reduces information overload in accessing a multitude of video streams from moving sensors. Users can select a location, retrieve multimedia data from sensors in the area and view streaming videos in real time that are synchronized with corresponding locations on a map. The product leverages TerraFly technology developed at an NSF Center at Florida International University (FIU). The Product Line will enable complex analysis of data in geographic space and time; it will allow map-based view and control of multitudes of moving objects and data streams. Several agencies, including DHS, have documented the need for this product and are co-sponsoring TerraFly applications.

The broader/commercial impact includes the potential to transform disaster mitigation command and control with easy-to-use technology that dramatically improves user's ability to know what is currently going on in specific locations should a disaster strike. This will allow these professionals to focus on the work that they need to accomplish instead of dealing with the technology, ultimately saving lives and property. This project, in collaboration with FIU, a Minority-serving University, will create high-tech jobs and careers for Florida students. International impact includes knowledge exchange via the Latin American GRID (a coalition of computer scientists led by the FIU Center), student research missions via the NSF international outreach projects at FIU, and TerraFly assistance to Haiti, Columbia, Brazil, and Chile in disaster and epidemics mapping. The system's educational module will facilitate studies of computing and the environment nationwide and within FIU coursework. The system will be disseminated via TerraFly leveraging prior exposure in scientific and popular media, including Fox TV News, NPR, New York Times, USA Today, Science, and Nature.