FAIRBORN — Wright State University has been awarded Air Force contracts to lead human-performance research intended to support anti-terrorism efforts and examine how combat fatigue affects troops, university officials said Tuesday.

The Wright State Research Institute, with corporate, medical and nonprofit partners, is to lead the research with partners in the Human Performance Consortium, formed in the fall of 2009. The two contracts, worth up to $6.4 million combined over five years, will support the missions of the 711th Human Performance Wing and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Wright State’s institute, begun in January 2007, has done prior work for the Air Force but these are the biggest contract awards so far, said Ryan Fendley, director of the institute.

Under one contract, the institute will team with partners Science Applications International Corp., Applied Research Associates and Kettering Health Network to use neuroscience and medical imaging to attempt to predict how soldiers will perform under certain conditions, and how to improve that performance. One focus will be to examine how the effects of fatigue vary among soldiers.

Another contract will fund research into interpreting how human behavior and facial expressions could help U.S. authorities forecast terrorist conspiracies and threats. Wright State’s partners in this contract will be SAIC; Radiance Technologies; daytaOhio, a state-assisted data analysis and visualization center at Wright State, and the Advanced Technical Intelligence Center for Human Capital Development, a Beavercreek school that trains intelligence analysts.