Imaging Sensor Constellation for Tomographic Chemical Cloud Mapping

摘要

A sensor constellation capable of determining the location and detailed concentration distribution of chemical warfare agent simulant clouds has been developed and demonstrated on government test ranges. The constellation is based on the use of standoff passive multispectral infrared imaging sensors to make column density measurements through the chemical cloud from two or more locations around its periphery. A Computed Tomography (CT) inversion method is employed to produce a three dimensional concentration profile of the cloud from the two-dimensional line density measurements. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical basis of the approach and present results of recent field experiments where controlled releases of chemical warfare agent simulants were simultaneously viewed by three chemical imaging sensors. Systematic investigations of the algorithm using synthetic data indicate that for complex functions, 3-D reconstruction errors are less than 20% even in the case of a limited 3-sensor measurement network. Field data results demonstrate the capability of the constellation to determine 3-D concentration profiles that account for tilde.