Remote Personnel Assessment

Urban warfare reduces engagement ranges to a few meters or less. Adversaries may approach U.S, Warfighters face-to-face under the disguise of civilian clothing or may lurk on the other side of a wall. All that stands in the way of disaster is the soldier’s ability to read the adversaries intentions, a difficult task in the best of circumstances. Radar/Lidar technology may assist the soldier in making better decisions by identifying target threats and characterizing their physiological state. Sperient develops handheld radars that measure heart and breathing rates by measuring tiny movements of the chest and torso. The radar emits a small pulse (much smaller than the signal of a cell phone) that bounces off the chest of the person under test. As the person under test breathes and his heart beats, the radar measures the motion as changing return signals. Challenges include penetration of clothing, walls/doors/windows and the fact that the cross-section of the target is so small. Heart and Breathing radar(s) developed by Sperient engineers were utilized at the World Trade Center to search for victims after the 9/11 attack and were tested at Texas A&M’s “Disaster City,” so Sperient’s advanced technology is well proven in an R&D sense. However, the technology was never carried-through to operational capability. In a separate effort, the microwave front-end of the radar was replaced to demonstrate Lidar capability. The Lidar was not used to measure heart and breathing rates, but presumably would be well suited when penetration is not an issue.