By Calvin Biesecker
Britain’s Chemring Group has introduced a new variant of its ground penetrating radar mine, detection system that can be mounted on a small unmanned ground vehicle for use on narrow roads and trails, particularly the goat paths found in Afghanistan that have to be navigated by United States soldiers on foot.
The VISOR Mini-HMDS is a portable variant of the company’s Husky-Mounted Detection System, which was first deployed last year by the Army in overseas conflicts. Husky features an ultra-wide band ground penetrating radar mounted on hydraulic arms extended from the front of a tractor. The VISOR system combines a ground penetrating radar with an advanced metal detector.
In August 2008, the Army conducted operational tests with Husky. Then, in January 2009, the service acquired 30 of the systems followed by a purchase of 50 more in July. Canada has bought 21 of the Husky mine detection systems. The system can detect metallic and non-metallic objects.
Based on the success of Husky and the operating conditions of forces in Afghanistan, Northern Virginia-based NIITEK, which a business unit of Chemring, began developing the VISOR Mini-HMDS, Terry Marsh, vice president of Business Development at NIITEK, told Defense Daily at annual AUSA conference in Washington, D.C.
The new ground penetrating radar is vehicle agnostic. At AUSA, the system was mounted on a TALON robot, which is made by QinetiQ North America. Marsh said the system is ready to be fielded and expects to do an operational test with the Army in January.
The VISOR system includes automatic target recognition algorithms and automatic marking. The system also includes a rugged laptop computer with a graphical touch-screen that allows the user to see what the radar and metal detector see. The system provides an alarm and three-dimensional visualization on the remote console.