Thanks to the innovative thinking of one image specialist, finding aircraft images could soon be a lot easier.

SUBTITLES: Flight Sergeant Michael Bott, an Air Force aerial photography specialist, searches for aircraft using an algorithm he helped develop while working on the Edgy Air Force program. Story by Corporal Jacob Joseph. Photo by Sergeant Craig Barrett.

Flight Sergeant Michael Bott was instrumental in developing an artificial intelligence algorithm that can identify and label images of specific aircraft types in a library of millions of images.

The idea came after an “Edgy Air Force Tinker Thursday” workshop that asked pilots to think about AI applications in the workplace.

“That’s when I realized how much easier that would have made my life,” said Flight Sergeant Bott.

If a picture lacked a detailed description, the only way to distinguish a Hornet from a Hercules was to look through the pictures one by one and update them.

That’s what Flight Sergeant Bott did when he was asked to find images of the Classic Hornet for a special project to mark the jet’s retirement in 2021.

A search for “Hornet” in the Defence image gallery yielded more than 13,000 results.

Only 3,000 of the decommissioned multi-role fighter were produced.

“Since we started taking digital photographs, we have been adding metadata that tells us what is in the photo, what is happening and why,” said Flight Sergeant Bott.

“Back then, the information was often general or imprecise, which makes it difficult to do targeted searches today.”

Through Edgy Air Force, a design and engineering program that gives pilots hands-on experience with technology to realize workplace innovations, Flight Sergeant Bott was able to find funding and a contractor to develop his algorithm.

He said that algorithms already exist to identify aircraft in images, but that this is the first time the Air Force has recognized military aircraft types.

“If I can give the algorithm 100,000 photos and it narrows the selection down to 5,000 photos for review, that’s a 95 percent improvement,” said Flight Sergeant Bott.

“That’s why the project was a success from the start – it immediately reduced the number of images a person had to look at.”

Flight Sergeant Bott originally developed the technology to detect and record aircraft and plans to use it to enhance the Air Force Museum’s vast image collection at Point Cook.

According to Lara Cluff, Warrant Officer of the Edgy Air Force program, a series of information and training courses will be held across the country in the coming months to give Airmen the opportunity to better understand design thinking and begin their own innovation journey.

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