NATO sensors panel, target recognition workshop coming to Wright State University

((Contributed by Tim Gaffney))

An international NATO technology panel and a regional sensors workshop are expected to draw more than 100 researchers, professors and students to Wright State University in August, organizers say.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Sensors Electronics and Technology Panel will bring an international slate of speakers to the Berry Rooms of Wright State’s Nutter Center on Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 8-9, addressing military technology issues important to America and its NATO allies.

Following it on Wednesday, Aug. 10, in the same location will be the Automatic Target Recognition Center’s Summer Workshop.

The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is the U.S. host of the NATO event, says Steven Scarborough, an AFRL radar researcher and enrollment coordinator for the event. Lecturers from AFRL, the United Kingdom and Germany are scheduled.

The Automatic Target Recognition Center (ATR) is a partnership between AFRL and the university’s Wright State Research Institute. The summer workshop will review the ATR Center’s research activities and explore the next steps forward, according to Brian Rigling, Ph.D., director of sensor systems for the Wright State Research Institute and associate professor of electrical engineering. Rigling is one of the workshop’s organizers.

This will be the first time the NATO panel has been held in the Dayton area, Scarborough says. Besides sharing knowledge among experts, the panel will give university students a chance to learn from the top minds in the sensors field.

“We want to get students interested in defense-related technologies, and this is a good way to do it,” Scarborough says.

Scheduling two sensors-related events back to back also should draw a larger attendance than either event would on its own, he says.

The ATR Center’s mission is to accelerate the development of ATR technology by funding and leveraging university research. Holding its annual workshop in conjunction with the NATO panel will help expose its work to international experts, Rigling says.

Registration for each event is available online at http://www.rta.nato.int/Meetings.aspx for the NATO event and http://www.cs.wright.edu/atr/ for the ATR Center workshop.