A NEW STANDOFF CB DETECTION TECHNOLOGY BASED ON THE FUSION OF LIBS AND RAMAN

Both standoff Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and Raman technologies have recently made great strides towards being deployed for operational use. Both technologies have demonstrated impressive capabilities of detection and discrimination of residue amounts of explosives at distances of 50+ meters in recent tests at the National Training Center, Ft. Irwin, CA, and Yuma Proving Ground, AZ, where the temperature extremes and other environmental conditions presented significant challenges. Beyond the strong performance of the individual sensors, the emerging paradigm of data fusion is yielding even stronger performance with regards to detection and discrimination capabilities. These two standoff sensor modalities have been recently applied to a number of chemical agent simulants and biological agent surrogates along with a number of confusants. Results of initial standoff tests on CB materials along with data fusion are presented