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By James Karins President & CEO, Pukoa Scientific
Located at the Manoa Innovation Center, Pukoa is one of many dual use companies growing and prospering in Hawaii. Dual use companies fund most of their product development with federal research grants and contracts, instead of using venture funds. This retains the ownership for the founders and staff, therefore maintaining control of the company in Hawaii. The research conducted by these companies is used to develop technologies that have both military and commercial applications. Humans are an excellent example of a pattern-recognition system, especially when it relates to the human senses. People regularly and effortlessly recognize images such as faces, sounds such as voices, smells, tastes, and haptic patterns such as Braille. However, people do not do well with data that is highly cluttered, in low-contrast environments, or is in the form of numerical data. Additionally, accurate pattern recognition by humans becomes highly degraded as the length of on-task time increases because of distractions, boredom, and fatigue. Degraded performance is a problem because many applications require persistent monitoring of large amounts data such as airborne recon-naissance or intruder detection and identification. These applications lend themselves better to automated pattern recognition. Unfortunately, first-generation pattern-recognition systems did not always meet expectations. These first-generation pattern recognition computers utilized a data or sensor snap shot and tried to detect and identify patterns of interest without utilizing any other available information. Second-generation pattern recognition systems take this concept several steps further by adding information outside of the snap shot. For example, Pukoa takes into account tracking information, physical limitations such as elevation and the location of roads and obstructions, and behavioral information such as previous activity patterns. In some cases the pattern-recognition system directs the sensor platform to collect additional information from other perspectives and distances. The systems also provide simplification in the use of the information such as notification of detections and identifications through the internet or directly to cell phones. These capabilities help to minimize the time required to monitor the pattern-recognition systems, freeing up valuable man power. Pukoa has spent four years developing the core technologies through funding from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the Hawaii Technology Development Venture (HTDV), and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS). The technology has been applied to airborne sensors such as unmanned air systems (UAS), intruder defense systems utilizing fiber array sensors, and biological agent detection systems. These sensors provide data such as infrared and visible imagery, acoustic and seismic signals, and fluorescence spectral signals. The second-generation pattern-recognition systems are suitable for all of these disparate sensor types and provide vast performance improvements, such as increased identification ranges, over first-generation systems. These developments and demonstrations provide the capability verification needed to transition the technologies into products required in defense acquisition programs and to commercial applications. Pukoa is currently working to incorporate these second-generation pattern recognition products into various military platforms, such as UAS, and into commercial products such as home security systems and real-time in vivo bacteria identification systems. |
Pukoa Scientific,LLC was founded in 2004 to develop next generation pattern-recognition technologies for military, security, medical and industrial applications. Pukoa has grown to an organization of 13 full-time and 4 part-time staff members and was named the second fastest growing company in Hawaii by Pacific Business News in 2009. The staff is predominantly made up of engineers and scientists, with most having attained degrees from University of Hawaii or Hawaii Pacific University. Several were previously employed on the mainland and have returned home because of the opportunities Pukoa has been able to offer.
