A small form factor, low cost radar named rScene® has been designed by McQ Inc. for the unattended detection, classification, tracking, and speed estimation of people and vehicles. This article will describe recent performance enhancements added to rScene® and present results relative to detection range and false alarms. Additionally, a low power (<1W) processing scheme is described that allows the rScene® to be deployed for longer duration, while still detecting desired target scenarios. Using the rScene® to detect other targets of interest like boats over water will also be addressed. Lastly, the lack of performance degradation due to hiding the rScene® in various types of concealed scenarios like behind walls, doors, foliage and camouflage material will be addressed. rScene® provides a variety of options to integrate the device into both wired and wireless communication infrastructures. Based on its sophisticated signal processing algorithms to classify targets and reject clutter, it allows for operation in challenging urban environments in which traditional unattended ground sensor modalities are less effective.
KEYWORDS: Radar, Sensors, Target detection, Unattended ground sensors, Radar sensor technology, Frequency shift keying, Signal processing, Detection and tracking algorithms, Doppler effect, Digital signal processing
McQ has developed, tested, and is supplying to Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) customers a new radar sensor. This
radar sensor is designed for short range target detection and classification. The design emphasis was to have low power
consumption, totally automated operation, a very high probability of detection coupled with a very low false alarm rate,
be able to locate and track targets, and have a price compatible with the UGS market. The radar sensor complements
traditional UGS sensors by providing solutions for scenarios that are difficult for UGS. The design of this radar sensor
and the testing are presented in this paper.
McQ developed for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) a very low-cost iScout® sensor system for detecting people in buildings and caves after military clearing operations to prevent their reuse by adversaries. The mission applications have expanded to include typical field operations such as Force Protection and facility security. To meet a broader mission capability, McQ significantly enhanced the performance of the iScout® Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) system. The enhanced performance includes improvements to the seismic, acoustic, magnetic, and passive infrared sensor processing algorithms and multimodal fusion to improve target classification. Additional features are a new radio frequency (RF) network architecture, built-in global positioning system (GPS) for automatic sensor position reporting, a new rugged watertight case, and an extremely low power consumption electronics design. McQ will describe these enhancements and present data characterizing the performance of the enhanced iScout® sensors.
McQ has developed a broad based capability to fuse information in a geographic area from multiple sensors to build a
better understanding of the situation. The paper will discuss the fusion architecture implemented by McQ to use many
sensors and share their information. This multi sensor fusion architecture includes data sharing and analysis at the
individual sensor, at communications nodes that connect many sensors together, at the system server/user interface, and
across multi source information available through networked services. McQ will present a data fusion architecture that
integrates a "Feature Information Base" (FIB) with McQ's well known Common Data Interchange Format (CDIF) data
structure. The distributed multi sensor fusion provides enhanced situation awareness for the user.
Determining the location of an explosive event using a networked sensor system within an acceptable accuracy is a
challenging problem. McQ has developed such a system, using a mesh network of inexpensive acoustic sensors. The
system performs a three-dimensional, time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) localization of blasts of various yields in
several different environments. Localization information of the blast is provided to the end user by exfiltration over
satellite communications. The system is able to perform accurately in the presence of various sources of error including
GPS position, propagation effects, temperature, and error in determining the time of arrival (TOA). The system design
as well as its performance are presented.
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