SBIR-STTR Award

Quick Reaction Corp. will develop a precise radar reflectometer, capable of searching for the 100,000,000 land mines that are buried throughout the world, which are responsible for maiming or killing thousands of innocent people annually. This reflectometer will measure very small changes in reflection which are caused by the presence of land mines. To locate land mines, the search area is illuminated by an array of small foot print collimated antennas. The ground caused reflected signal in each antenna beam is measured and continuously cancelled by an active loop, resulting in a precise vector measurement in each antenna caused only by the ground reflection. It is the difference between adjacent beam's ground reflection vectors that provides detection. This approach will improve detection and estimates of target location and size.

This Small Business Innovative Research Phase II project is to demonstrate the concept of a precise radar reflectometer implemented as a hand held mine detector to measure a very small change in reflection caused by an obscured anomaly (buried plastic land mine). A monostatic radar sequentially illuminates the search area with an array of small foot print collimated antenna beams. The antenna footprint is designed to approach the smallest mine size to improve detection. Detection is realized when there is a small change in the reflected signal between adjacent antenna beams as the array is scanned over the ground. The vector signal from each antenna is processed to generate the standard dual axis direction finding pattern that improves the estimates of target location, size and shape. The radar frequency (500 to 900 MHz) is selected to obtain good penetration of the ground and to use cellular telephone components to keep the power drain and cost low- It is estimated there are over 120 million mines abandoned in more than 60 countries, killing 10,000 children and adults every year and maiming thousands more. There are two commercial opportunities for the mine detector, military mine detection and humanitarian mine clearing.