Off-Route Mine Detection

There is a growing threat of side-attack mines that attack vehicles and personal from the side as the target passes by. The ability to detect mines that are concealed by camouflage or foliage at distances of 200 meters with a high probability of detection, high clutter discrimination, and low false alarm rate and at rates that a convoy travels is essential to the systems success. This proposal entails the development of state of the art off-route mine detection technology capable of detecting existing and next generation off-route and side-attack land mines. The proposed solution uses commercial automobile collision warning radar equipped with a fixed monopulse antenna to search the roadsides for potential targets. By measuring the difference between the Radar signal level returned or reflected from a side-attack mine and or explosive and the expected signal level returned or reflected from the roadside, it is possible to exploit that difference to determine normal environment from potential threatening environment. The proposed solution efforts will address one or more of the following: detection of the threat, self-calibration, no requirement to re-trained system for each new weapon or configuration, low cost, light weight and simplicity of operation.