Rapid Chemical Vapor Threat Mapping with Cooperative Ground and UAS Sensors

A single, ground-based, passive, standoff chemical agent vapor sensor cannot map a chemical vapor cloud because passive sensors only measure direction and not range to vapor clouds. It is not always possible, especially for a ground vehicle mounted standoff sensor, to have additional ground-based sensors at favorable vantage points to assist in threat mapping. The objective of the proposed effort is to solve the threat mapping problem with only one ground-based passive standoff sensor. Development of new cooperative sensor technology is proposed to create a threat mapping capability for a single ground-based, passive, standoff chemical vapor sensor. The approach leverages past STTR work and combines it with a new, low SWaP/low cost, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) based, passive standoff chemical vapor sensor to assist the ground-based standoff sensor in rapid chemical vapor threat mapping. The UAS standoff sensor consists of new filter array technology and a COTS detector to create a high-resolution infrared spectrometer with no moving parts. A high-sensitivity, ground-based, standoff chemical vapor sensor will, upon chemical agent detection/identification, cue a UAS-based standoff chemical sensor to fly to an orthogonal vantage point to assist the ground-based standoff sensor in rapid chemical vapor cloud mapping. The ground-based sensor will additionally cue the UAS sensor to the specific chemical agent of interest to enhance signal processing/algorithm performance in the lower sensitivity UAS sensor. The mapping process will be both simplified and more accurate via the use of the orthogonal vantage points (relative to the ground-based sensor location) which are achieved by the UAS sensor flight path. To reduce the time to cue the UAS sensor and to further increase the speed of chemical vapor threat mapping, a linear detector array in the ground-based sensor will be simulated/evaluated as part of the proposed effort. The purpose of the linear detector array is to enable the ground-based standoff sensor to measure the entire near horizon elevation range all at once (as opposed to raster scanning the near horizon field-of-regard), while maintaining the high sensitivity and high temporal resolution of larger size detector elements common in high sensitivity, non-imaging hyperspectral standoff sensors. The proposed effort will build and demonstrate a prototype UAS standoff chemical sensor, develop cooperative cueing and threat mapping software, and then demonstrate ground and UAS based standoff sensor cooperative threat mapping at a chemical simulant release test event.