There is a growing threat of side-attack mines that attack vehicles and personal from the side as the target passes by. The ability to detect mines that are concealed by camouflage or foliage at distances of 200 meters with a high probability of detection, high clutter discrimination, and low false alarm rate and at rates that a convoy travels is essential to the systems success. This proposal entails the development of state of the art off-route mine detection technology capable of detecting existing and next generation off-route and side-attack land mines. The proposed solution uses commercial automobile collision warning radar equipped with a fixed monopulse antenna to search the roadsides for potential targets. By measuring the difference between the Radar signal level returned or reflected from a side-attack mine and or explosive and the expected signal level returned or reflected from the roadside, it is possible to exploit that difference to determine normal environment from potential threatening environment. The proposed solution efforts will address one or more of the following: detection of the threat, self-calibration, no requirement to re-trained system for each new weapon or configuration, low cost, light weight and simplicity of operation.
Benefits: There is a need to develop new systems and methods to detect existing and next generation off-route side attack land mines. The technology developed in this topic will have applications in both military and civilian environments. Although the primary customer for this specific application is the Army the underlying technology may be used in standoff personnel threat screening and for the detection of explosives and wiring configuration will help keep the costs for the military application down. Landmine technologies, mine detection, radar, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), ground penetrating radar (GPR), foliage penetrating radar (FOPEN)
