Thermal Vehicle Track and Buried IED Detection

ThermoAnalytics Inc and KRC propose to develop innovative techniques to locate buried mines and IEDs and to identify vehicles by their tracks left in soil using infrared spectroscopic systems. When an activity such as mine burial or vehicle passage disturbs the ground surface, soil properties and vegetation are altered in measurable and identifiable ways. The IR radiance from the soil can be correlated to localized redistributions in soil density, quartz content, porosity, grain size, surface texture, and moisture content. Through modeling and testing, we will identify correlations between the thermal radiance, physical changes of the soil, and the load and method that disturbed the soil. A remote sensing strategy that discriminates changes in spectral observations of these disturbances will provide information of great benefit to de-mining operations and military planners. We will create a model that will predict thermal IR radiance given the conditions of a mine burial or the axle load and track or wheel pattern of a vehicle. ThermoAnalytics will base the model on the physics of soil mechanics by relating surface disturbances with changes in the thermophysical and optical properties of soil.