Date: Jan 01, 2012 Source: ARMY SBIR Success Story (
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Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS) are battery powered, wireless persistent surveillance systems that automatically and autonomously detect activity by vehicles and personnel. In recent years, UGS have become increasingly capable with the ability to detect, classify and identify activity at longer ranges with a higher probability of detection and lower false alarm rates -- all characteristics that make them increasingly valuable to the Army. However, they also have become increasingly expensive restricting their use to special applications. McQ developed, demonstrated and delivered 100 prototype UGS sensors that pushed the cost dramatically lower -$10-$20 U.S. Army Research Laboratory per sensor. These Disposable Sensor System (DSS) UGS units have seismic, magnetic, acoustic and passive infrared detection modalities with ad hoc mesh networked wireless communications and advanced signal processing -- just like their more expensive counterparts.
McQ built upon this project in a number of different ways. In a Phase III SBIR for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, McQ modified DSS and demonstrated in field tests the ability of the sensor to localize weapon impact locations to within a few meters for bomb damage assessment applications. McQ further refined DSS into a highly capable UGS sensor called iScout. iScout has seismic, magnetic, acoustic and passive infrared detectors, but unlike other low cost sensors, it is small enough to fit in a Soldier's pocket and has multiple digital signal processors for staged processing. This approach to processing, the first of its kind for this class of sensor, results in low power consumption and detection performance comparable to larger, more expensive UGS systems. iScout has been widely accepted, with several thousand units manufactured and delivered to operational forces. The uses for iScout have expanded far beyond what was originally envisioned in the original SBIR including variants that have been used for cueing for airborne imagers, cueing for ground based optical tracking, perimeter protection for weapons storage, boundary monitoring, and non-lethal mine applications. The DSS SBIR efforts have also spawned the development of an advanced UGS communications system to support iScout and other UGS systems.
Technology Transition:
MCQ, Inc. has realized over $8.3M in Phase III funding, over $5.6M in sales and $2.5M in private investments. McQ has experience in designing state of the art remote sensor systems and successfully commercializing them for a variety of applications.
