Optical Measurement of Penetration Resistance, and Automatic Determination of Rating Cone Index

The Department of Defense currently administers 25 million acres of land. To expedite and reliably estimate mission impacts on this huge territory, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is soliciting an innovative portable device for estimating site condition in terms of Erosion Potential/Training Capacity/Trafficability (EPTCT). All current methods are based on manual collection of cone penetrometer data, which is neither automatic nor rapid. To eliminate this bottleneck, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a novel device for optical measurement of penetration resistance (OMOPR) for automatic determination of the rating cone index in off-road soil. This device, to be installed on any driven wheeled vehicle, will measure wheel tire track depth and correlate the results with cone penetrometer data. The proposed OMOPR functions automatically to continuously generate rated cone index values for site EPTCT estimation. A minimal amount of cone penetrometer data will be required for system calibration, and the depth of a tire track will be measured optically by a system of laser triangulation sensors. In Phase I, POC will provide a feasibility demonstration of the OMOPR technology. In Phase II, a full-scale OMOPR system will be developed and tested under field conditions.