Airborne Detection of Disturbed Soil Using Electro-Optic (EO), Hyperspectral, Infrared (IR), and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Sensors

"The proposed work will develop and demonstrate innovative sensor technology and algorithms for the detection of disturbed soil. This proposed effort will first investigate the remote sensing observables of soil disturbance as seen by electro-optical andinfrared sensors and SAR. Based upon this investigation, we will design innovative processing algorithms to detect areas of disturbed soils automatically. Over the past several years, there have been advances in the development of algorithms for thedetection of military objects of interest using hyperspectral sensors. We propose to use reflection band and thermal infrared data taken from hyperspectral measurement platforms to not only evaluate the potential of hyperspectral but also to determine ifbroadband sensors or multi-spectral sensors can accomplish the task. We also propose to use data acquired by SAR sensors at high spatial resolution and over multiple times to evaluate texture and moisture discriminants and the potential for changedetection. Tests will be conducted on image data collected from airborne platforms to optimize and validate the algorithms. An option task for planning the evaluation of combinations of sensors and algorithms using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)curves is proposed. Buried Land mines are a significant problem throughout the world. They are a barrier to the movement of troops as well as a significant interruption of the normal movement a