Advance Antenna and Processing Solutions for Multi-Functional Target Detection System

Advances have been made in the radar detection of IED/EFPs. However, multiple targets are detected in a clutter rich environment. Current radar systems cannot discriminate a threat from a non-threat, therefore all detections must be treated as potential threats and either remediated or avoided. This proposal proposes a system for improved radar target detection, discrimination and target identification capabilities which will be capable of detecting and identifying IEDs, EFPs, and weapons/ammunition hidden in walls, floors, or in the ground. ZAI will combine technology advances in MIR/UWB waveforms, fulpol antenna designs, cross correlation processing, and pattern matching techniques. The new array antenna and cross correlation software will be used to determine the pose and dimensionality of the unknown object. This data will be compared with stored templates of expected threat objects stored in memory in all possible aspect angles. It will be a two channel, MIR/UWB, forward looking, push broom synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system. The design goal road speed will be 20 KPH. If successful, the proposed system will reduce the false alarm rate and provide for more efficient and effective tactical operations.