Charles River Analytics, a developer of intelligent system solutions, announces the release of Figaro, a language for probabilistic programming. Dr. Avi Pfeffer, Principal Scientist at Charles River explained, “Figaro supports a new kind of model-development process by simplifying the challenging task of creating probabilistic models, which determine a situation’s unknown facts from known facts. Figaro does this by combining the power of functional programming with the ease of use of object-oriented programming.”

Figaro is designed to represent many kinds of models, including Probabilistic Relational Models (PRMs), an object-oriented representation that makes entities and relationships explicit. Figaro and PRMs are being used in a number of programs at Charles River. In developing a system for the Assessment of Adversary Capability and Capacity via Intelligence Analysis (ACACIA), Figaro was used to create models of specific situations while sharing knowledge across situations. In prototyping a system for Probabilistic and Relational Inferences in Dynamic Environments (PRIDE), Figaro is used to develop a PRM-based framework for monitoring complex, dynamic situations and assessing the success of dynamic plans. In a similar fashion, Figaro has been used as the underlying engine for space situation assessment in the Multi-Int System for Space Situation Awareness (MInt4SSA), a project in which Charles River is developing a situation assessment data fusion component that identifies relationships and situation state across space abnormality event tracks.

For more information or to download Figaro, visit our Figaro page.