Detection of IED emplacement in urban environments

Abstract

This research will be focused on discovering patterns of activity that lead to the emplacement of IEDs by terrorists in urban environments. This research will employ a network in a predictive mode by looking for suspicious activity patterns and raising alerts when a pre-determined level of confidence is achieved in the prediction. The scope of this thesis will be to conduct various experiments using wireless sensor network motes to detect the presence of magnetic material. Using various configurations of the motes, a pattern will be established that best predicts the presence of IEDs in a busy urban environment. The configurations will be designed and tested for reliability and coverage to support detection in various urban settings. The results show that wireless sensor networks in conjunction with other anti-IED methods prove useful for the detection of IED material in urban settings. A wireless sensor network configured with proper equipment provides useful results for detecting IEDs and shows potential for correctly predicting behavior associated personnel carrying IED material.