Original Date: 01/27/1997
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

(equipment: Echelle grating spectrometer, laser radar, CAMI, Clementine sensors, nuclear and chemical sensors, infrared imagers, acoustic spectrometer, radar)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in collaboration with industry, academia, and other government agencies, has demonstrated several high-quality affordable sensor systems which address the Nation’s needs and requirements. By combining its scientific, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities with a full system mentality, LLNL has designed and deployed various remote sensing systems and unattended monitoring systems.

The Remote Optical Monitor for Airborne Chemicals (ROMAC) is a passive infrared cross-dispersion spectrometer designed for chemical sensing applications such as proliferation detection, chemical weapon detection, industrial pollution studies, and environmental monitoring. LLNL has optimized the current instrument for the remote, airborne identification of the effluents being emitted from an industrial smokestack. Because this robust sensor has no moving parts, its is far more immune to vibration than conventional Fourier Transform Spectrometers. In addition, because it takes data simultaneously over its entire spectral range, it is immune from the data corruption caused by rapidly changing background scenes. This feature, and its small size and weight, make it ideal for airborne deployments. It has recently been flight tested on a Navy P-3 aircraft.

The Compact Airborne Multispectral Imager (CAMI) is a demonstrated system for visual and near infrared remote sensing, and can be used for environmental hot spot/spill detection, camouflage detection, troop and vehicle detection, etc. It is a near real-time, multi-band system with pointing and signal/noise advantages over conventional pushbroom sensors. It is small and light enough to be deployed on small aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicle platforms.

LLNL has designed and constructed a frequency agile mid-wave infrared light detection and ranging system which can provide remote measurements of atmospheric aerosol distributions. LLNL developed all the component technologies for the Clementine payload that flew in 1994 and very successfully performed all required objectives (Figure 2-6). An integrated effluent identification and measurement system, airborne multisensor pod system (AMPS), for which LLNL provided a sensor and integrated the sensors from Sandia National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest Laboratory, has flown on a Navy P-3 and demonstrated high sensitivity chemical effluent identification and measurement for applications of treaty verification, proliferation detection, and industrial effluent studies (Figure 2-7).

Additional sensor development with seismic, magnetic and infrared capabilities for detecting illegal entry of drugs and people into the U.S. and for protecting archaeological and natural sites from vandalism and theft have been developed. LLNL is developing new technologies to be tested that offer the potential to detect, identify, and locate key elements in buried facilities and technologies like an acoustic spectrometer which could detect and classify vehicle and rotating machinery. LLNL has approached each of these sensor developments from a full system perspective with the objective of being cost effective, producible, and have multi-application potential.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.