White papers, articles & publications

White Paper: Total Maritime Domain Awareness

Abstract: Maritime domain awareness deals with the situational understanding of maritime activities that could impact the security, safety, economy or environment. It enables quick threat identification, informed decision making, effective action support, knowledge sharing and more accurate situational awareness. Persistent surveillance involves multiple systems corroborating in order to detect, classify, identify, track and assess situations within an area of interest. In this white paper, we concentrate on the challenges presented in applying the concepts of information fusion to the problem of maritime domain awareness, and how we plan to resolve them. We first introduce the conventional techniques and their drawbacks, discuss the contemporary data ecosystem and briefly present a potential solution which learns to closely match the dynamic internal structures present in the data. This solution, developed and patented by Larus Technologies, performs behavior analysis through predictive modeling, is capable of dealing with heterogeneous (i.e. multi-source, multi-sensor) data, is mostly automated yet human-centric and resolves the challenges presented by maritime domain awareness.

August 11, 2015
Dr. Rami Abielmona, VP Research and Engineering of Larus Technologies, discusses, in a co-authored publication in The Journal of Ocean Technology, the substantial challenges associated with Arctic marine operations while balancing that with the prospects of increased activity in Canada’s north. These prospects strengthen the need for improved awareness and preparedness among a broad base of stakeholders, including maritime safety and security, maritime transport, fisheries control, marine pollution and environment, customs, border control, general law enforcement, and defence. Read Leveraging Advanced Technologies in Support of Extensive Arctic Maritime Domain Awareness (PDF).

September 1, 2013
Dr. Rami Abielmona, VP Research and Engineering of Larus Technologies, discusses how high-level information fusion and computational intelligence will help maritime operators and decision makers expedite the detection of various threats and anomalies in littoral and bluewater regions. Read Tackling Big Data in Maritime Domain Awareness (PDF)

July 16, 2012
Dr. Rami Abielmona, VP Research and Engineering of Larus Technologies, discusses the state of data fusion solutions in our capital in an Ottawa Business Journal (OBJ) article that highlights the need to refine information from multiple sources in order to provide a clearer operational picture. Read Defence and Security: Fusing Together a New Defence Sector

March/April 2011
The Thinking Highways Magazine (North American Edition) publishes an article, authored by Lee J. Nelson, in its latest issue entitled “An overwhelming sense of security.” The article discusses resolving territorial security problems through the use of sensor networking and data fusion while focusing on leading-edge efforts to surmount real-time challenges. Larus Total::Insight™ for Territorial Security is described in the article, along with other state-of-the-art products, as solutions that proffer flexibility in data acquisition and deployment while promising to ease operator overload, ensure interoperability and promote a unique data-sharing paradigm.

Here is a sample of publications by employees of Larus Technologies.

• R. Abielmona, R. Falcon, N. Zincir-Heywood, H. Abbass “Recent Advances in Computational Intelligence in Defense and Security: Introductory Chapter”, Recent Advances in Computational Intelligence in Defense and Security, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 621, pp. 1-9, (R. Abielmona et al. Eds.), Springer Intl. 2016 [Read More]
• P. Curtis, M. Harb, R. Abielmona, E. M. Petriu “Classification-Driven Video Analytics for Critical Infrastructure Protection”, Recent Advances in Computational Intelligence in Defense and Security, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 621, pp. 45-69, (R. Abielmona et al. Eds.), Springer Intl. 2016 [Read More]
• A. Plachkov, R. Abielmona, M. Harb, R. Falcon, D. Inkpen, V. Groza, E. Petriu “Automatic Course of Action Generation using Soft Data for Maritime Domain Awareness”, GECCO ’16 Companion: Proc, 2016 on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, ACM, pp. 1071-1078, Denver, CO, USA, July 2016 [Read More]
• N. Primeau, R. Falcon, R. Abielmona, V. Groza, E. M. Petriu “Improving task allocation in risk-aware robotic sensor networks via auction protocol selection”, Proc. 2016 IEEE 20th Jubilee Int. Conf. on Intelligent Engineering Systems (INES), pp. 21-26, Budapest, Hungary, July 2016
• B. Desjardins, R. Falcon, R. Abielmona, E. M. Petriu, “A Multi-Objective Optimization Approach to Reliable Robot-Assisted Sensor Relocation”, Proc. 2015 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 956-964, Sendai, Japan, May 2015
• J. McCausland, R. Abielmona, R. Falcon, E. M. Petriu “Risk-Aware Sensor Networks for Critical Infrastructure Monitoring”, Proc. 11th Int. Conf. on Shock and Impact Loads on Structures – SILOS 2015, pp. 295-304, Ottawa, ON, Canada, May 2015 [Read More]
• R. Falcon, R. Abielmona, S. Billings “Risk-Driven Intent Assessment and Response Generation in Maritime Surveillance Operations”, 2015 IEEE International Multi-Disciplinary Conference on Cognitive Methods in Situation Awareness and Decision Support (CogSIMA), pp. 151-157, Orlando, FL, USA, March 2015
• R. Falcon, R. Abielmona, S. Billings, A. Plachkov, H. Abbas “Risk Management with Hard-Soft Data Fusion in Maritime Domain Awareness”, 7th IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence for Security and Defense Applications (CISDA), pp. 1-8, Hanoi, Vietnam, December 2014 [Read More]
• R. Abielmona, R. Falcon, P. W. Vachon and V. Z. Groza “Vessel Tracking and Anomaly Detection using level 0/1 and High-level Information Fusion Techniques,” 6th International workshop on Soft Computing Applications (SOFA), Timisoara Romania, July 24-26, 2014.
• J. McCausland, R. Abielmona, R. Falcon, A-M. Cretu and E. M. Petriu “On the Role of Multi-Objective Optimization in Risk Mitigation for Critical Infrastructures with Robotic Sensor Networks,” 2014 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), Vancouver, Canada, July 12-16, 2014
• R. Falcon, R. Abielmona and E. Blasch “Behavioral Learning of Vessel Types with Fuzzy-Rough Decision Trees,” 17th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION), Salamanca, Spain, July 7-10, 2014
• H. Shao, R. Abielmona, R. Falcon and N. Japkowicz “Vessel Track Correlation and Association using Fuzzy Logic and Echo State Networks,” 2014 IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Beijing, China, July 6-11, 2014
• A-H. Razavi, D. Inkpen, R. Falcon and R. Abielmona “Textual Risk Mining for Maritime Situational Awareness,” 2014 IEEE International Multi-Disciplinary Conference on Cognitive Methods in Situation Awareness and Decision Support (CogSIMA), San Antonio, USA, March 3-6, 2014
• J. McCausland, G. DiNardo, R. Falcon, R. Abielmona, V. Groza and E. Petriu “A Proactive Risk-Aware Robotic Sensor Network for Critical Infrastructure Protection,” IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Virtual Environments for Measurement Systems and Applications CIVEMSA 2013, Milan, Italy, July 15-17, 2013 (PDF)
• A. Panchapakesan, R. Abielmona, E. Petriu “Dynamic White-Box Software Testing using a Recursive Hybrid Evolutionary Strategy/Genetic Algorithm,” IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation CEC 2013, Cancun, Mexico, 20-23 June, 2013
• A. Panchapakesan, R. Abielmona, E. Petriu “A Python-Based Design-by-Contract Evolutionary Algorithm Framework with Augmented Diagnostic Capabilities,” IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation CEC 2013, Cancun, Mexico, 20-23 June, 2013
• R. Abielmona and R. Falcon, “Risk Management Framework for Search-and-Rescue Operations“, Second Canadian Tracking and Fusion Group (CTFG) Workshop, Ottawa, September 2012
• R. Falcon, R. Abielmona and A. Nayak, “An Online Shadowed Clustering Algorithm Applied to Risk Visualization in Territorial Security”, IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence for Security and Defense Applications (CISDA), Ottawa, Canada, July 2012
• R. Falcon and R. Abielmona, “A Response-Aware Risk Management Framework for Search-and-Rescue Operations”, IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Brisbane, Australia, June 2012
• R. Falcon, R. Abielmona and A. Nayak, “An Evolving Risk Management Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks”, IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence for Measurement Systems and Applications (CIMSA), Ottawa, Canada, pp. 1 – 6, September 2011
• R. Abielmona, “Intelligent Territorial Security Using Sensor Networking and Data Fusion”, First Canadian Tracking and Fusion Group (CTFG) Workshop, Ottawa, March 2011
• R. Abielmona, E. M. Petriu, M. Harb, S. Wesolkowski, Mission-Driven Robotic Intelligent Sensor Agents for Territorial Security IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 55-67, 2011, DOI: 10.1109/MCI.2010.939580 (© 2011 IEEE. Reprinted with permission)
• M. Harb, R. Abielmona and E. Petriu, “Speed Control of a Mobile Robot Using Neural Network and Fuzzy Logic”, International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), Atlanta, June 2009
• M. Harb, R. Abielmona, E. Petriu, and K. Naji, “Neural Control System of a Mobile Robot”, International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IEEE World Congress of Computational Intelligence, pp. 2826-2833, Hong Kong, June 2008
• M. Harb, R. Abielmona, K. Naji, and E. Petriu, “Neural Networks for Environmental Recognition and Navigation of a Mobile Robot”, IEEE 2008 International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology (I2MTC), pp. 1123-1128, Victoria, Canada, May 2008
• R. Jessami-Zargani, V. Fond, S. Bourdon, & M. Harb, “From Modeling to Utility: End to End Evaluation of ISR Sensor Architectures”, SET-130 Symposium on NATO Military Sensing, Orlando, Florida, US, March 2008
• R. Abielmona and G. DiNardo, Networking: The growing role for advanced sensors (online version), VANGUARD Magazine, March/April 2007
• R. Abielmona and V. Groza, “Indoor Sensor Networks: Localization Schemes”, IEEE CCECE 2007, Vancouver, 22-26 April 2007

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Books published by Larus employees:

• R. Abielmona, R. Falcon, N. Zincir-Heywood, H. Abbass “Recent Advances in Computational Intelligence in Defense and Security”, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 621/2016, 752 p., Springer Verlag, ISBN 978-3-319-26448-6 (Print) 978-3-319-26450-9 (Online) [Read More]