Charles River Analytics Inc., developer of intelligent systems solutions, has announced its expansion into environmental modeling with a Phase II effort for the US Army Small Business Innovation Research Program. In the Contamination and Lasting Effects Analysis for Negative Substances and Elements, or CLEANSE, effort, Charles River is creating a decision-support tool to improve the efficiency of scheduling remediation efforts at military test and training facilities. The one-year contract is valued close to $500,000; with an option, if exercised, for an additional $500,000.
Environmental awareness has become an important consideration within military training facilities. Contamination may be generated during training exercises; and if not tracked and treated in a timely and appropriate fashion, contaminant release could harm the environment increase threats to endangered species and affect the quality of surface and groundwater sources. Facility managers are tasked with scheduling mitigation events to prevent the transport of contaminants that could harm surrounding ecosystems.
“CLEANSE will assist facility managers by providing workflow guidance,” said Mr. Mike Farry, the Principal Investigator on the effort at Charles River and Vice President, Socio-Cognitive Systems. “CLEANSE is equipped with models, visualizations, and information on toxic properties and information about how contaminants spread. With CLEANSE, facility managers reasoning about contaminant and mitigation information will be able to make more informed decisions when assessing damaged grounds.”
A mockup of the CLEANSE Contaminant Analysis showcasing a card-based user interface
CLEANSE can also act as a learning resource; it can recognize characteristics of new contaminants introduced to the environment from new training exercises. Besides aiding the military in environmental efforts, CLEANSE’s technology can be extended to other industries that follow regulations to protect the environment from harmful by-products.
Charles River’s teammates on the CLEANSE effort include Prof. Chad Vecitis, Mr. Greg Silverberg, and Ms. Andrea Weber, of the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, and Col. James Zanol (US Army, Retired), of Zanol Consulting Inc.
This material is based upon work supported by the Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) under Contract No. W912HZ-16-C-0001. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Engineering Research and Development Center.
