Countermeasures to the Buried Mine

"We propose research in the context of a larger program to deliver, in FY 2007, a multi-sensor system to counter buried mines. For tactical use, this demonstration may require two subsystems: one that makes a rapid wide area environmental assessment and asecond system that performs the buried mine hunting in areas when and where the first system has shown it is feasible. Countering buried sea mines will require the use of a multiplicity of sensors including low frequency sonar. In order to achieve tactically useful resolution with a LF sonar on a practical search platform, synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) processing willbe required. The use of SAS at low frequencies for buried targets has a number of consequences that we propose to explore and quantify. These areas include: the use of broad-band/beam sonars, adaptive algorithms that use the special characteristics of SASto gain additional information about buried objects, and the application of SAS to "acoustic color" sensing. We will also investigate other sensor capabilities and the performance of multiple sensor systems. For the Phase II option, we propose to develop apreliminary design for a system that might meet the FY 2007 demonstration goals.BENEFITS: There is no current capability to counter buried mines and therefore if the threat is sufficiently large in some location, the fleet will avoid that area. Solving this problem will give the fleet new maneuver options that it doe