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Improved situational awareness is a primary goal for the Objective Force. Knowing where the enemy is and what are the threats to his troops provides the commander with the information he needs to plan his mission and provide his forces with maximum protection from the variety of threats that are present on the battlefield.
Sensors play an important role in providing critical information to enhance situational awareness. The sensors that are used on the battlefield include, among others, seismic, acoustic, and cameras in different spectral ranges of the electro-magnetic spectrum. These sensors help track enemy movement and serve as part of an intrusion detection system. Characteristically these sensors are relatively cheap and easy to deploy.
Chemical and biological agent detection is currently relegated to sensors that are specifically designed to detect these agents. Many of these sensors are collocated with the troops. By the time alarm is sounded the troops have already been exposed to the agent. In addition, battlefield contaminants frequently interfere with the performance of these sensors and result in false alarms. Since operating in a contaminated environment requires the troops to don protective garments that interfere with their performance we need to reduce false alarms to an absolute minimum.
The Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center (ECBC) is currently conducting a study to examine the possibility of detecting chemical and biological weapons as soon as they are deployed. For that purpose we conducted a field test in which the acoustic, seismic and electro-magnetic signatures of conventional and simulated chemical / biological artillery 155mm artillery shells were recorded by an array of corresponding sensors. Initial examination of the data shows a distinct differences in the signatures of these weapons.
In this paper we will provide detailed description of the test procedures. We will describe the various sensors used and describe the differences in the signatures generated by the conventional and the (simulated) chemical rounds. This paper will be followed by other papers that will provide more details information gained by the various sensors and describe how fusing the data enhance the reliability of the CB detection process.
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