Standoff Detection of Human Carried Explosives for Military Force Protection

U.S. military commanders have placed a high priority on protecting U.S. forces from concealed Human Carried Explosives (HCEs) at home and abroad. Required detection ranges extend beyond 100 meters, and response times for suicide bombers are often lessthan one minute. Civilian law enforcement and corrections authorities are also highly interested in technologies that remotely detect concealed weapons in individual and group settings. Modern hidden weapon detection technologies use portalconfigurations that require close-in sensing, putting the security professional at risk. Emerging millimeter wave radar imaging technologies extend detection ranges to tens of meters, but require a minute or more to scan and form an image. SET proposesto develop a novel multisensor hidden weapon detection system that extends detection ranges beyond 100 meters, and automatically detects and alerts an operator to HCE threats in seconds. The system employs video sensors to detect and track potentialthreats, and a real-beam radar to interrogate and classify tracked objects cued by the video. This research lays the groundwork for the proposed system by investigating the feasibility of remotely discriminating HCEs from clutter with video-cued radar.The proposed HCE detection solution offers many benefits over state-of-the-art technologies, including extended operating ranges to detect HCEs before they threaten forces, rapid interrogation to minimize operator response times, automated processing toreduce labor costs and cognitive overload, inexpensive and portable COTs sensing and processing components, innovative video and radar fusion algorithms to reduce false alarms, and non-imaging penetrating radar to avoid privacy concerns. There arenumerous commercial law enforcement and corrections applications for stand-off metal detection technologies, such as the ability to safely search apprehended criminals, monitor prison populations, and remotely scan crowds at sporting events, concerts,airport lobbies, open markets, and other public venues.