COHERENT TECHNICAL SERVICES, INC. — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: A15A-T012

Description

Hostile conflicts leave behind millions of armed landmines in developing countries throughout the globe. Humanitarian demining is hazardous and labor intensive. A promising development in detecting explosives found in landmines is using small, olfactory sensitive animals trained to act as biosensor detectors. However, current manual training methods require skilled trainers following strict protocols, and this extensive time and effort is a limiting step in using animals for explosives detection. In addition, trainer skill level, attention to procedures, and animal performance record keeping can increase training time and decrease detection performance. A robust automated trainer system is a solution that provides increased consistency and accuracy, increases output by reducing limits on training capacity, and improves labor related efficiency. CTSi has designed a simple to use flexible trainer system equipped with stimuli and sensors to automate animal training and deliver detection performance. Automation reduces labor and allows ordinary people to supervise an animal training program. Our system will allow precise stimulus control, monitor animal response, and provide informative, detailed data on training status and detection performance. It is designed to operate in adverse environmental conditions. Additionally, the approach can easily be expanded and adapted to other inspection and security applications.