Meet Dr. Tarik Crnovrsanin

Advisor: Dr. Cody Dunne

Institution: Northeastern University

Bio:  Tarik Crnovrsanin is a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Cody Dunne and is part of the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program at Northeastern University. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on visualizations, techniques, and systems for static and dynamic networks, radio signals, and movement data. He is currently shifting to work more on using Dimension Reduction and Predictive Machine Learning techniques and their applications in visualization.

Abstract:  The unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) industry is gaining popularity as applications in delivering supplies, supporting emergency services through rapid search, or collecting environmental information in hard-to-reach places. With the expanded use of drones and their prevalence in the coming years, a better understanding of behaviors and their intent, be it `normal' or `malicious' in nature, is needed to ensure a positive effect on society as a whole.  There are existing methods in other research fields, such as for maritime traffic, to detect patterns and anomalous behavior.  Determining the effectiveness of said methods in drone behavior will require the analyst to explore the results and corresponding data. Interactive visualizations can prove a powerful tool in helping to identify these drone patterns. We propose creating a visualization tool that utilizes a combination of statistical and machine learning techniques along with geospatial visual analytics to better understand UAV movement behavior. This tool would also allow for the identification of anomalous behavior patterns that analysts can further explore.