RAPID (Remote Assessment of Powerline Infrastructure Damage) Radar

In a catastrophic event, much of the electrical infrastructure can be damaged, even destroyed. The US Power Grid is a critical infrastructure and a catastrophic failure would result in huge humanitarian and economic loss. In addition, a widespread power outage would affect the readiness and response capabilities of various security agencies including Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Local Police, Department of Defense (DoD), etc. Through “RAPID Radar”, the product we propose to develop in this project, the power grid can be quickly assessed for damage and for efficient restoration after a large scale outage. We are proposing to fully develop, evaluate, optimize and commercialize a RAPID Radar that will assess the staus and damage to US Power Grid in the event of a catastropic natural event, such as, Tornados, Earthquakes, Floods, etc. We will design, develop and demonstrate an autonomous declaration radar and algorithm suite that will: (1) adaptively and coherently reject natural and manmade surface clutter, (2) coherently integrate the returns from the entire object of interest (powerlines and cables), and (3) autonomously identify downed or damaged powerlines, cables, and poles. This technique we propose to employ will provide autonomous detection and declaration of hazards without the need for image formation. The overall objective of Phase I is to demonstrate the feasibility of using the proposed RAPID Radar system for the health of wires/cables of Electrical Power Grid, which can be damaged in a catastrophic natural event. The Phase I effort will include: 1) the develop and evaluation of the proposed radar processing algorithms for identifying powerlines using laboratory and simple outdoor experiments, 2) an evaluation of the network health estimation tools using the powerline identification output, and 3) development of an initial X-Band/MMW radar system hardware design for an aerial platform. Local Emergency Management Services (EMS), and National Agencies, e.g., Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FEMA, DOD, DOE, etc. can use this product to assess the electric grid in the event of a catastrophic event. In addition to government agencies and local police, commercial Utilities, such as, AEP use the RAPID radar system to map their existing infrastructure (during normal operation) and to assess damage the electric power grid after a catastrophic natural event.