SBIR-STTR Award

The terrain hazard detection sensor measures the contour of the terrain in front of a moving vehicle providing information about terrain slope. It measures the size of objects in the vehicle path and issues commands to the vehicle when the object is too large for the vehicle to pass over and also measures sizes of holes and ditches in the vehicle path to insure that the vehicle can safely pass over them.

Laser based obstacle identification represents the essence of subject design, development and testing a terrain hazard detector sensor (hazard detection sensor), small business innovation research (SBIR), phase II effort. The hazard detection sensor system will consist of hardware and firmware performing continuous, forward obstacle analysis. Hardware shall consist of a gyro stabilized laser terrain scanning system with charge coupled display video camera for off route obstacle detection. Image processing of video will be conducted in near real time (<0.2 sec) by relational algorithms, resulting in identification of tracked vehicle obstacles such as trees, ravines and mobile vehicles, etc. When completed, this effort will provide a major development toward autonomous tracked vehicle operation.