Analysis of air-soil temperature differences at five locations for applications in passive standoff chemical detection

Caroline S. Turcotte; Jean-Marc Theriault

doi:10.1117/12.568737

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14 December 2004 Analysis of air-soil temperature differences at five locations for applications in passive standoff chemical detection

Caroline S. Turcotte, Jean-Marc Theriault

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Proceedings Volume 5584, Chemical and Biological Standoff Detection II; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.568737
Event: Optics East, 2004, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Abstract

For a passive spectral sensor, the temperature difference (DT) that exists between a chemical cloud and the background scene is of prime importance because it is linked to the radiative contrast of the target. The larger DT, the better the radiative contrast and the more accurate is the detection and identification, of the cloud. This paper establishes statistics on realistic air-soil DT to be used to estimate the detection performance of passive spectral sensors in a variety of scenarios and environments. To this end, an analysis of the air-soil DT is presented for five locations around the world. The results of the analysis indicate that the statistics of the air-soil absolute DT are similar from one location to another. The average statistics over the five locations show a mean absolute air-soil DT of 3.5 °C and a median of 2.8 °C. An absolute air-soil DT of less than one degree Celsius occurs less than 14% of the time on the average. This suggests that, on average, air-soil temperature contrasts should yield good detection probabilities 86% of the time.

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Caroline S. Turcotte and Jean-Marc Theriault "Analysis of air-soil temperature differences at five locations for applications in passive standoff chemical detection", Proc. SPIE 5584, Chemical and Biological Standoff Detection II, (14 December 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.568737

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