Hyperspectral and Synthetic Aperture Radar Fusion for Concealed Target Detection

Achieving global awareness by automatically exploiting sensor data will provide tremendous advantage to the warfighter. However, camouflage, concealment, and deception (CC&D) can be effective countermeasures against surveillance systems. The most promising strategies for defeating CC&D exploit multiple sensor modalities, such as foliage penetration (FOPEN) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and hyperspectral imaging sensors. Each sensor modality has strengths and weaknesses against particular CC&D techniques. Furthermore, the strengths of different sensor modalities are often complementary: information from one sensor modality enhances the utility of information from another. To achieve the potential synergy from multiple-sensor surveillance systems, it is necessary to resolve at least four technical issues: 1) information from different sensor modalities must be combined effectively, 2) imagery from different sensor modalities must be registered to facilitate information combination, 3) communication requirements must be minimized to fit within available data links, and 4) sensor operations must be optimized to exploit the capabilities of each sensor. This proposal discusses these technical challenges and describes a research and development program for addressing them in the context of coordinated synthetic aperture radar and hyperspectral imaging surveillance systems.