Accession Number:

AD1064186

Title:

Using GRAIL Tools to Remotely Assess Terrain Conditions for Austere Entry

Descriptive Note:

Technical Report

Corporate Author:

ERDC HANOVER United States

Personal Author(s):

• Shoop,Sally A.
• Wieder,Wendy L.
• Ochs,Elke S.
• Sinclair,Samantha N.

Report Date:

2018-04-01

Pagination or Media Count:

51.0

Abstract:

The Geospatial Remote Assessment for Ingress Locations GRAIL efforts under the Army Terrestrial-Environmental Modeling and Intelligence System ARTEMIS program have made significant advances in the remote assessment of terrain and soils for locating potential landing zone and drop zone LZ and DZ sites for military operations. The project identified sources of high-quality geospatial data, defined preprocessing requirements to produce global datasets for analysis, and created the GRAIL Tools software. The GRAIL Tools algorithms analyze and filter geospatial datasets to search for areas suitable for aircraft ground operations. GRAIL Tools then applies geometric criteria to determine if the required LZDZ will fit within the areas of suitable terrain and displays the potential LZs and DZs superimposed over geospatial imagery. Verification of the GRAIL Tools concept at Fort Hunter Liggett, California, developed and trained the suitability filter algorithms with regard to vegetation, obstructions, and soil strength. Further work served to enhance the algorithms and develop the full toolkit. Future work at a variety of sites, including work in northern regions with snow, ice, and freezingthawing soils, will evolve the GRAIL Tools to handle the full spectrum of global terrain conditions for military operations.

Descriptors:

• Remote sensing
• soils
• image processing
• geographic information systems
• moisture content
• machine learning
• soil classification
• algorithms
• statistical analysis
• regions
• surveys

Subject Categories:

• Soil Mechanics
• Information Science

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE