Characterization of Occupied/Unoccupied Underground Sanctuaries

Time Domain Corporation (TDC) proposes to develop a solid state, small, light weight, low power pulsed Ultra-Wideband Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for smaller UAVs to scan for, detect and characterize underground sanctuaries. This radar meets the situational awareness and latency needs of front line tactical commanders in fast paced engagements. TDC's SAR compliments the capabilities of current small UAV EO and IR sensors with a multi-band RF view of potential sanctuaries. TDC's SAR also supplements the current small UAV EO/IR sensors for sancutaries hidden by foliage, camouflage, obscurants, buildings and caves; concealment measures which traditionally defeat small UAV sensors. Our approach is to design a UWB antenna which can be mounted to a small UAV, make appropriate electronic improvements and packaging modifications to our core through wall RadarVision-2 board set, modify and upgrade our 2D SAR algorithms for 3D tomographic imaging, add motion compensation algorithms, and integrate these components into a small UAV SAR for testing in Phase-2. Phase-1 will generate a SAR image of a local culvert from a rooftop using current SAR hardware. The SAR images will show static geometry and moving personnel in the culvert compared to synchronous video frames and quantitative performance data.