1. DARPA MIND’S EYE PROGRAM
Industry Day Announcement
DARPA‐SN‐10‐34
March 15, 2010
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
3701 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203‐1714

2. DARPA MIND’S EYE PROGRAM
INDUSTRY DAY ANNOUNCEMENT
DARPA‐SN‐10‐34
INTRODUCTION
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will conduct a briefing to Industry, on
April 20, 2010, in support of the anticipated Mind’s Eye program Broad Agency Announcement
(BAA). This announcement serves as a pre‐solicitation notice and is issued solely for
information and program planning purposes. When released, the BAA will be found on the
FedBizOpps website, http://www.fedbizopps.gov.
EVENT OVERVIEW
The Mind’s Eye program seeks to develop in machines a capability that currently exists only in
animals: visual intelligence. Humans in particular perform a wide range of visual tasks with
ease, which no current artificial intelligence can do in a robust way. Humans have inherently
strong spatial judgment and are able to learn new spatiotemporal concepts directly from the
visual experience. Humans can visualize scenes and objects, as well as the actions involving
those objects. Humans possess a powerful ability to manipulate those imagined scenes
mentally to solve problems. A machine‐based implementation of such abilities would be
broadly applicable to a wide range of applications.
This program pursues the capability to learn generally applicable and generative
representations of action between objects in a scene directly from visual inputs, and then
reason over those learned representations. A key distinction between this research and the
state of the art in machine vision is that the latter has made continual progress in recognizing a
wide range of objects and their properties—what might be thought of as the nouns in the
description of a scene. The focus of Mind’s Eye is to add the perceptual and cognitive
underpinnings for recognizing and reasoning about the verbs in those scenes, enabling a more
complete narrative of action in the visual experience.
One of the desired military capabilities resulting from this new form of visual intelligence is a
smart camera, with sufficient visual intelligence that it can report on activity in an area of
observation. A camera with this kind of visual intelligence could be employed as a payload on a
broad range of persistent stare surveillance platforms, from fixed surveillance systems, which
would conceivably benefit from abundant computing power, to camera‐equipped perch‐and‐
stare micro air vehicles, which would impose extreme limitations on payload size and available
computing power. For the purpose of this research, employment of this capability on man‐
portable unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is assumed. This provides a reasonable yet
challenging set of development constraints, along with the potential to transition the
technology to an objective ground force capability.
Mind’s Eye strongly emphasizes fundamental research. It is expected that technology
development teams will draw equally from the state of the art in cognitive systems, machine
vision, and related fields to develop this new visual intelligence. To guide this transformative
DARPA MIND’S EYE PROGRAM – INDUSTRY DAY ANNOUNCEMENT - MARCH 15, 2010 2

3. research toward operational benefits, the program will also feature flexible and opportunistic
systems integration. This integration will leverage proven visual intelligence software to
develop prototype smart cameras. Integrators will contribute an economical level of effort
during the technology development phase, supporting participation in phase I program events
(PI meetings, demonstrations, and evaluations) as well as development of detailed systems
integration concepts that will be considered by DARPA at appropriate times for increased effort
in phase II systems integration.
The goals of Industry Day are threefold: 1) to familiarize participants with DARPA’s interest in
the Mind’s Eye research area and the forthcoming program requirements, 2) to promote
understanding of the BAA proposal guidelines, and 3) to promote discussion of synergistic
capabilities among potential program participants. It is DARPA’s desire to facilitate the
formation of strong teams and business relationships in order to develop comprehensive,
quality responses to any potential DARPA solicitation. Information on the Mind’s Eye BAA will
be available at: http://www.darpa.mil/tcto_solicitations.html following the publication of the
BAA in FedBizOpps. Following the Industry Day, the web site will contain Frequently Asked
Questions, presentations from the Industry Day, and an attendance list for teaming purposes.
Attendance at the Industry Day is voluntary and is not required to propose to subsequent Broad
Agency Announcements (if any) or research solicitations (if any) on this topic. DARPA will not
provide reimbursement for costs incurred to participate in this Industry Day. The Industry Day
does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals or abstracts. Attendance is limited to
two (2) representatives per organization.
Tentative Agenda
1:00 – 2:00 pm Opening Remarks and Program Manager Presentation
This session will include the introduction of the DARPA
Mind’s Eye Program vision and philosophy, objectives and goals
2:00 – 2:15 pm Break
2:15 – 3:30 pm Q&A Session
REGISTRATION
Registration must be completed by April 16, 2010 via the following site –
http://tinyurl.com/MindsEyeIndustryDay.
NOTE: Attendance is limited to two (2) representatives per organization.
DATE & LOCATION
The Industry Day will be held on April 20, 2010, at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center,
located at 775 12th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005.
http://www.marriottmetrocenter.com/
DARPA MIND’S EYE PROGRAM – INDUSTRY DAY ANNOUNCEMENT - MARCH 15, 2010 3