AKELA INC — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: A16A-T004

Description

Laboratory investigations have suggested that acoustically or vibrationally inducing motion in buried targets can aid in improving target detectability through a characteristic response related to differential target motion. This gain is realized by adding an additional degree of freedom, modulation due to motion in the GPR return signal, to use as a discriminating feature. The AKELA team is proposing to further investigate and exploit this phenomenology, focusing on high frequency GPR (375MHz 4000GHz), through simulation and guided laboratory experimentation. This investigation will quantify potential improvements in target detection, classification and clutter discrimination. A man portable system design including key elements of the acoustic and vibration excitation source will be developed using the results of the Phase I investigations. The simulation, experimental and algorithmic results of Phase 1 can inform the extension of the virbationally or acoustically enhanced GPR to longer standoff systems, such as the NVESD forward looking GPR system. The Phase I program focuses on adapting the AKELA teams simulation techniques, algorithms and radar technology to investigate the feasibility and performance benefits of an acoustically or vibrationally enhanced GPR for explosive hazard detection.