AI in Action: OCR and NLP

The primary objective of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Information Management System (EODIMS) project was to develop and deploy a sophisticated information management system tailored specifically for the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) units across the United States Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. The system was designed to streamline the ingestion, processing, and accessibility of critical EOD documents and manuals, leveraging advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies within a secure, airgapped environment.

EODIMS utilized a cutting-edge technical architecture, incorporating a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers to serve as a cost-effective, scalable, and secure computing backbone. This infrastructure supported the deployment of specialized OCR and NLP tools for the initial ingestion and analysis of EOD-related documents and manuals. These documents were meticulously scanned to identify and extract relevant information while ensuring the exclusion of classified materials through keyword and marking detection algorithms.

Subsequent to the initial data extraction phase, the project employed Spacy and Prodigy - two leading open-source libraries in the NLP domain - to refine the data processing pipeline. This phase focused on the identification and tagging of key names, terms, and other significant entities within the ingested documents. The sophistication of Spacy's linguistic models, combined with Prodigy's interactive learning capabilities, facilitated a highly effective entity recognition and data classification process.

A crucial aspect of EODIMS was the involvement of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the data annotation and verification process. SMEs received comprehensive training to utilize the system for labeling data, providing contextual insights, and ensuring the relevance and accuracy of the information processed by EODIMS. This collaborative approach between technology and human expertise was pivotal in achieving the project's objectives.

Given the sensitive nature of EOD operations and the critical importance of data security, EODIMS was designed with stringent security protocols. The system was deployed on an airgapped server, ensuring complete isolation from external networks and potential cyber threats. Additionally, the document ingestion and processing workflows incorporated rigorous checks to prevent the accidental inclusion of classified information, thus maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of the data.