The trend toward more urban warfare has the U.S. military’s technology development arm, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), calling for sensing technologies to remotely determine the map of building interiors. The goal is to provide above- and below-ground awareness of buildings for interior intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). The idea is to deploy a number of different sensing technologies that can determine the interior space of a building from its exterior–mapping walls, utilities and all entrances and exits. View the DARPA’s requirements here.
This move to fund research and development for remote sensing of interior spaces will speed the creation of urban digital realities. There are certainly questions of privacy that may limit the application of such technology for civilian applications, but there will certainly be technologies that will be leveraged.
