Year
2009
Abstract
The use of ground surveillance radar (GSR) is becoming an effective complementary element for perimeter intrusion detection and assessment systems. GSRs provide three impressive enhancements: the ability to penetrate poor visibility environments, accurate ranging and tracking capability, and integration of modern video systems for both assessment and surveillance. GSRs also provide long-range (extending to several kilometers), wide area (360°) field-of-view (FOV) detection for a range of target sizes and speeds. This ability provides a significant improvement in capability when combined with more traditional perimeter intrusion detection and assessment systems. Sandia National Laboratories has performed laboratory and operational testing, system performance analysis, and installation of a commercially available STS-1400™ frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW), millimeter wave (MMW) GSR system. This system, manufactured by ICx Technologies, is integrated with a DefendIR™ visible/thermal infrared (IR), pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) camera, also manufactured by ICx, to assess threats. The integrated system uses an adaptive threshold to detect motion of objects that exceed an established background. Objects are tracked across range and azimuth bins to determine the current/predicted path of targets and to provide an alarm if the path intrudes into a designated area. Additional GSR units are networked in an overlapping array to protect large areas and mitigate terrain irregularities. This paper summarizes the Sandia testing of the network-based STS-1400/DefendIR. Sandia’s testing demonstrates that a networked deployment of GSR units can provide an easily configurable, cost-effective solution for early detection and assessment of intruders over a broad area, well beyond the designated perimeter. The ICx system provides a significant advance in GSR effectiveness, primarily through the reduction of nuisance alarms.