A Tactical Decision Aid to Determine Optimal Times to Acquire Buried IEDs With Thermal Imaging Systems

Development of a novel software application to estimate the “best times” during a diurnal cycle to find buried IEDs is proposed. Disturbed soil heats and cools at a different rate than the surrounding undisturbed soil. Clutter objects also heat and cool at differing rates from the soil because of different heat transfer mechanisms and coefficients. Therefore, there may be times of day when buried IED signals are sufficiently distinct from clutter objects to allow reliable detection. Our software application will estimate when and the duration of these favorable periods over varying meteorological conditions. In the Phase I effort we will use a DoD-developed high fidelity background model, EOView, to prove the concept. We will use predicted thermal signatures of IEDs and thermal clutter objects from EOView to assess their time varying thermal characteristics driven by the diurnal meteorology. In the Phase I Option the development of a Commander’s IED-TDA product begins. We will write a software requirements specification and begin to develop high fidelity stand-alone thermal modules of buried IEDs and clutter objects suitable for use in a PC-based application through imposition of appropriate boundary conditions on the thermal modules. A prototype product is developed in Phase II.