ADVANCED SYSTEM FOR MINEHUNTING AND OCEANOGRAPHIC REMOTE SENSING

A NEW APPROACH IS PROPOSED FOR OCEANOGRAPHIC REMOTE SENSING WITH DUAL USE APPLICATIONS IN MINE HUNTING, OCEAN BOTTOM MAPPING, AND SEA FLOOR REMOTE SENSING. THE WEAVER IS A SONAR SYSTEM INTENDED TO DETECT, LOCALIZE, AND CLASSIFY SEAFLOOR BOTTOM LAYING TARGETS, DISCRIMINATING MAN-MADE ITEMS FROM NATURAL ONES IN THE PRESENCE OF NATURAL CLUTTER; IT EXPLOITS HERETOFORE OVERLOOKED TARGET-PHYSICS BASED CHARACTERISTICS OF MULTILOOK, MULTI-APERTURE RETURN SIGNALS FROM SEAFLOOR AND MINE LIKE OBJECTS (MLO) TARGETS. THE WEAVER IS A SYNTHESIS AND EXTENSION OF TECHNIQUES FOUND IN AREAS INCLUDING STANDARD AND INTERFEROMETRIC SYNTHETIC APERATURE RADAR (SAR/IFSAR), SWATH BATHYMETRY (SB), MONOPLUSE RADAR TRACKING APPLICATIONS AND 3D RADAR TARGET IDENTIFICATION AND IMAGING. IN ADDITION, THE WEAVER GENERATES ON OUTPUT A UNIQUELY REUSABLE OCEANOGRPHIC DATA FORMAT THAT GREATLY INCREASES THE UTILITY OF ACOUSTIC DATABASES BY PROVIDING BOTH ROBUSTNESS AGAINST ORIENTATION DEPENDENT EFFECTS EMBEDDED IN THE DATA SET, AND A NEW PARADIGM FOR VISUALIZING THE INHERENT NATURE OF THE OCEANOGRAPHIC REMOTE SENSING DATA.