THERMOANALYTICS, INC. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 01c

Description

An important tool in the regulation and monitoring of nuclear proliferation is remote sensing involving the analysis of thermal hyperspectral images. The hyperspectral radiance of a suspected target can be decomposed separated) into components related to the targets spectral emissions, reflections of its surroundings, and atmospheric effects using Temperature- Emissivity-Separation analysis. This identification of target materials can be frustrated by inaccuracies in the modeling of the radiative environment and in the prediction of target temperatures in complex convection environments. A fluid dynamic-convective heat transfer predictive tool will be developed that can produce fast and accurate temperature predictions. This tool will be combined with a thermal hyperspectral simulation to produce accurate and detailed simulated hyperspectral imagery. For material identification purposes, the simulation tool will produce hyperspectral images for a selection of target materials. The resulting simulated hyperspectral radiances will be matched against the radiance data from measured imagery. To make the identification process flexible and robust, the atmospheric and radiance properties will be retrieved from the simulated images, and this information used in a Temperature-Emissivity-Separation analysis. In Phase I, a prototype of the convection tool will be developed and used to predict convection for a scenario provided by the customer. The thermal and hyperspectral simulation tool will then produce a set of hyperspectral images that will be used to identify target materials using a variety of material-identification algorithms. Development of the enhanced thermal prediction simulation software in Phase I and II will significantly benefit a wide variety of government and commercial remote sensing applications. Combined with the Temperature-Emissivity-Separation software, the ability to monitor nuclear proliferation will be greatly enhanced.