Signature Evaluation for Thermal Infrared Countermine and IED Detection Systems

The countermine computational testbed is a coupled system of parallelized computer codes and associated software tools that can simulate images from remote sensors operating in the visible and infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The testbed is used to explore thermal and hydrologic process interaction at a fine scale to understand the contrast between target and background. The testbed provides an opportunity to exploit knowledge of the ground state (soil moisture, soil, or vegetation temperature) and material properties (hydraulic and thermal), to optimize sensor selection and time of flight, and to improve automated target recognition algorithms (ATRs) by limiting false alarms. For example, the testbed provided simulated data to provide field guidance on sensor performance taking into account weather events. The use of simulated data to improve ATR performance is described in detail.