Sandia_Natl_Labs_FY19_LDRD_Annual_SAND2020-3752 R_2_S

FY19 ANNUAL REPORT

Mobile sensors find the best data to identify threats. Researchers at Sandia developed information- driven control techniques allowing mobile robotic sensors to determine and collect the data most likely to help identify threats. Distinguishing potential threats from other alarm sources like animals and weather is a central physical security challenge. Sensors that can reposition themselves without human action can “get the information they need to make threat determinations faster, more efficiently, and more reliably” than traditional security systems, Steve Buerger, the LDRD principal investigator (PI) said. The team developed algorithms that fuse detections and object identification from multiple sensors and make optimal plans to acquire new data that drives down threat uncertainty, all in real-time. Initial experiments used teams of ground and airborne platforms and intelligently fused data from sensors including color, thermal, and LIDAR range. The technology is expected to form an important pillar of future high-value physical security systems.

Two mobile ground sensors (inset) autonomously identify potential threats in a security scene. Sensors detect unfamiliar objects and identify them using classifiers running on LIDAR, color, and thermal imagery.

Sandia scientists begin to unlock the optical emission characteristics of plutonium. A collaboration leveraging expertise in uranium oxide formation at Sandia and in laser-produced plasmas at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) measured what is thought to be the first-ever reported electronic spectra for Pu- oxides. The team is analyzing historic electrodeless discharge lamp Pu-240 spectra for quantitative emission strength analysis. Spectra were collected using an experimental laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) on Pu-239 metal, characterizing the spectral, spatial, and temporal dynamics of the laser-produced plasma. The data demonstrate an enabling capability that places Sandia and PNNL as national leaders in the field of actinide optical spectroscopy.

The data demonstrate an enabling capability that places Sandia and PNNL as national

leaders in the field of actinide optical spectroscopy.

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LABORATORY DIRECTED RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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