Ladar-Acoustic Fused Sensor for Area Denial Application

Area Denial concepts, as applied to the next generation of scatterable mines (NGSM), are oriented to the philosophy of greatly reducing the cost and logistics burden of the current family of scatterable mines (FASCAM) while maintaining or improving their effectiveness. By extending the sensing radius of the mines and employing some level of warhead mobility, each mine can protect a larger surrounding area, thus reducing the number of mines required per minefield. ARDEC is currently investigating short range, low cost, ladar-acoustic hybrid sensors, which would be capable of detecting, classifying, tracking, and selecting the optimal firing path to vehicular targets at various ranges from the sensor. In this concept, the strengths and weaknesses of each sensing mode are designed to complement each other, resulting in improved performance of the integrated product. Design concepts will be described and emphasis will be placed on techniques to detect and track targets despite near ground obstacle and terrain features, which can block line of sight. Experimental results, as available at the time of this paper, will also be presented. Background: Area Denial at ARDEC Current concepts of anti-armor minefields are well illustrated with the Family of Scatterable Mines (FASCAM) product currently in widespread use. In FASCAM, a section of the battlefield can be controlled and denied to enemy armor by virtue of classical minefield philosophy. When a vehicle encounters a mine, by literally running over it, the mine can register a “belly kill”. The effectiveness of such a minefield is a direct function of the density of deposited mines over the protected area since the density directly controls the statistical probability that a vehicle will pass over the mine. In this sense, the classical mine is the original “unattended ground sensor”, since it lays in wait until engaged. A central goal of the current Area Denial concept is to greatly improve the cost-effectiveness efficiency of future FASCAM-like minefields by greatly reducing the density of required mines while maintaining the same (or better) effectiveness at same (or less) cost. The underlying premise of this concept is that a single mine node can protect an area of much larger radius, thus not required a vehicle to directly run over it. If the mine were capable of sensing a nearby passing vehicle, then engaging the vehicle with the proper warhead at a distance, the area of coverage per mine would be greatly extended. Even modest extension of the radius of protection results in dramatic savings. Figure 1 plots the savings in number of required mines (compared to a standard FASCAM minefield) as a function of the radius of protection per mine. The ability to sense and kill a vehicle at only a few meters can reduce the number of required mines to less than half, and if the radius of protection were on the order of 15 meters, an order of magnitude in savings could be realized! The Area Denial Technology Base effort at ARDEC is investigating the feasibility of attaining and demonstrating the essential features of these goals with low cost, emerging technologies. The two pacing components of this concept are a sensing component and a mobility component. Wide varieties of mobility concepts, integratable with a variety of sensing components, are currently under investigation for performance and tradeoffs. Initially, each node will be sized and formed so as to be remotely launchable from a Volcano-like dispenser. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.