Rapid Surveying of Buried Mines by Conjunct Seafloor Image and Biomimetic Signal Classification

"Cost- and time-effective mine countermeasures have become high priority in today's U.S. Navy. Current system technologies are inadequate for identifying buried mines and ordnance. In Phase I ORINCON and its colleagues developed a unique system designthat fuses acoustic 3-D sediment images and signal classification algorithms. Seafloor and sub-bottom maps are produced by a sonar ideally suited for detecting proud and buried mine-like targets. Image processing algorithms automatically detect andlocalize targets of interest. Targets are extracted and passed to biomimetic signal classification algorithms that map time/frequency patterns into object class declarations. The final system output is a water column, seafloor and sub-bottom volumetricimage with targets of interest clearly identified and classified.The goal of Phase II is to develop a complete signal/image processing system for acoustic identification of buried sea-mines. Objectives include: (1) Expansion and further development of the acoustic signal/image classification architecture developed inPhase I; (2) Fusing classifiers to decrease false alarm rates; (3) System demonstration against a target field specified by the Navy's Mine Countermeasures Program; (4) Development of an acoustic buried target detection/classification workstation.BENEFITS: The proposed buried object detection/classification system has utility in a wide range of commercial applications, including b