As part of a research initiative within the US Army Research Laboratory, we investigate acoustic sensing capability from
UAVs for remote Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) applications. Acoustic sensing from UAVs offers
several advantages over acoustic sensing on the ground including: (i) longer detection ranges due to upward refraction
and (ii) a single elevated acoustic array (versus multiple acoustic arrays on the ground) can provide a pointing vector to
the acoustic source on the ground. However, there are technical challenges with having acoustic sensors on UAVs which
involve self generated noise from the platform and the air flow. In this paper, we describe our current work with
acoustic sensors on small UAV platforms and present preliminary processing results from a recent field experiment.
Over the past several years, uncooled IR detectors and focal plane arrays have been rapidly developed. Impressive progress has been made in both resistive microbolometers and pyroelectric thin-film detectors with noise equivalent temperature differences projected to be 10 to 20 mK with F/1 optics for such structures. Noise equivalent temperature of 50 mK bulk pyroelectric detectors and thin film resistive microbolometers are already demonstrated and in production. Other novel schemes, such as bimaterial capacitors, are also promising for uncooled IR detection. The US Army Research Laboratory is involved in developing ferroelectric materials to take advantage of the pyroelectric properties. The goal is to develop crystal oriented thin films to further improve detector performance. In this presentation, the operating principle of resistive microbolometers and pyroelectric detectors, and recent progress of uncooled RI focal plane arrays are discussed. In addition, the uncooled RI detector program at the Army Research Laboratory, that includes research facilities for and research efforts toward uncooled detectors and focal plane arrays is presented.
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