Underwater (UW) Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Multi-Sensor Data Base (MSDB) Collection

Abstract : This paper describes the Multi-Sensor Data Base (MSDB) Collection, a two phase project to collect quality acoustic and electromagnetic (EM) detection and mapping data of underwater (UW) unexploded ordnance targets and demonstrate the value of data fusion from three sensors detecting independent phenomena. The MSDB project initially used a suite of acoustic, passive magnetic and active EM sensors deployed from a surface catamaran and a wide area augmentation system (WAAS) global positioning system (GPS) to measure the detected target position locations. Phase I MSDB tests conducted in October 2005 included over 75 search runs over the UXO target fields at two shallow water sites in St. Andrews Bay, FL. Phase I tests demonstrated that the acoustic (Buried Object Scanning Sonar) and EM sensors (Realtime Gradiometer and GEM-3 array) could detect proud and buried UXO-sized targets at both sites but only BOSS had sufficient detection range to reliably detect UXO targets during a single search track run. Phase I tests also showed that WAAS GPS was not suitable for detailed target mapping and did not permit meaningful fusion of the UXO detection data from the three different sensors. Phase II tests were conducted in September 2008 with a modified goal of collecting quality detection and mapping UW UXO with only a BOSS sensor using an Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS with higher mapping accuracy. Phase II tests demonstrated that BOSS acoustic sensor could detect and map all UW UXO targets within 25 cm of ground truth and reliably detect UXO targets buried 30.