Aptima is a defense contractor that works in the intersection of Psychology and Computer Science. As someone who has always enjoyed working in cross-disciplinary fields, I decided to work at Aptima to implement my Computer Vision experience to address some of their problems. I worked with Aptima to find an independent product that I could create to address some of their problems.

 

At Aptima, I developed a product called Evalu8. It addresses the growing need to bring in objective context to the analysis of cognitive workload while performing surveillance tasks through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Aptima has performed multiple correlatory experiments measuring cognitive load with performing image analysis. Evalu8 analyzes drone footage and applies multiple feature extraction and optical flow algorithms to develop a rating of the visual clutter or load caused by the footage, using open source algorithms. The system is designed to be able to predict visual perception load using raw video, and inform, in real time, the stress levels of drone pilots.

 

This was an interesting experience that gave me the opportunity to see research from an industrial perspective. I benefitted from the ability to collaborate with the company to use my experience to solve their problems. Along with the scientists at Aptima, I worked to understand how R&D is structured at companies.  The full manual/paper for my project is linked below.