Search

Accurate personnel and vehicle tracking has been achieved using networks of small, unobtrusive, low-cost wireless sensors. The wireless MSTAR sensors developed in this work are based on previous pioneering MEMS sensing and TinyOS communications software work completed at UC Berkeley. The works has been funded under the DARPA SensIT, SensorWebs, and on-going DARPA NEST programs. These MSTAR sensors deliver around the clock all-weather surveillance and perimeter protection for field environments, including buildings, camp and tent locations, streets, mountainous regions, and other geographies. These capabilities satisfy many on-going intelligence and warfighter safety requirements. The MSTAR sensors are quickly deployed by hand emplacement or air-drop from a UAV or other airborne platform. The combination of multimode sensing on each wireless MSTAR sensor and multiple MSTAR sensors in the environment yields low false detections within the network perimeter. In addition, using the geopgraphy dispersion and networked algorithms, it is possible to estimate the target's speed, direction, and loosely classify the target. Satellite exfiltration of data provides real-time access to the data on a worldwide basis. Future work includes additional field trials and the incorporation of acoustic capture, video capture, and biosensors into the MSTAR wireless sensor platform.

A novel handheld time-domain array GPR antipersonnel mine detection system prototype has been developed. Using an offset paraboloidal reflector antenna to collimate rays form an ultra-wideband feed, the transmitted microwave impulse is concentrated forward, in front of the antenna structure. The resulting wave is a non-uniform plane wave over the portion of ground be investigated, and is incident at 45 degrees to normal. As such, much of the ground reflect wave is directed further forward, away from the operator, the reflector, and the receiving antennas, thereby reducing clutter. However, the wave transmitted into the ground, which interacts with the target, tends to have significant backscatter returning toward the receiving antennas. These receiving antennas are configured in a 2 by 2 array to provide spatial focusing in both along and cross-track directions. This is accomplished by measuring and comparing the backscattered signal at each receiver in the narrow time window between the times when the ground reflected wave passes the receiver and before this wave re-reflects from the reflector components. 2D FDTD simulation of this parabolic reflector transmitter indicates that it generates a beam with a non-uniform planar wavefront, which scatters form rough ground primarily in the forward direction. The wave transmitted into the ground is also planar, propagating at the angle of refraction, and scattering fairly isotropically from a small penetrable target. This system has been built and tested at LLNL, using a very narrow pulse shape. LLNL's Micro-Impulse Radar (MIR) and custom-built wideband antenna elements operate in the 1.5 to 5 GHz range. One particular advantage of using the MIR module is its low cost: an important feature for mine detectors used in developing countries. Preliminary measured data indicates that the surface clutter is indeed reduced relative to the target signal, and that small non-metallic anti-personnel mines can be reliably detected at burial depths as shallow as 1 inch in both dry.