AAC’s active Research and Development projects include:

• Doppler Advanced Radar Target Scoring (DARTS)
  
  In response to the increased need for accurate projectile scoring at test ranges, Aberdeen Test Center and AAC have developed Doppler Advanced Radar Target Scoring (DARTS), a lightweight, affordable system that provides a viable solution to projectile scoring

  at both short and long range facilities. DARTS provides the user with a near real-time impact score for both subsonic and supersonic projectiles. As with many R&D projects, DARTS has applications in various environments, such as civilian firing range facilities, police training facilities, NASA applications and military test facilities.
  
  

• Auditory Cortex
  AAC, in collaboration with the University of Maryland’s Center for Acoustic and Auditory Research (CAAR), is capturing the functionality of the human auditory system by implementing mathematical models and using innovative signal processing techniques to discover how the human ear perceives sound. The human auditory system is an extremely robust classifier and hardware and software models are being created to achieve this same robustness.
  
  
• Acoustic Compact Wideband Air-Array (ACWA) Sensor
  
  • Collision Avoidance
  Bird-aircraft collisions present a significant threat to military and commercial aircraft. As bird populations and airport/airbase operations continue to expand, the probability of collision increases. In an effort to bolster airfield environment awareness, AAC developed the Acoustic Compact Wideband Air-Array (ACWA) Sensor as a multiple use open-air awareness sensor. Based on the underwater Sparsely Populated Volumetric Array (SPVA), this sensor has the capability of tracking acoustic events in an open air environment.
  
  
  • Border and Perimeter Surveillance
  The ACWA sensor, with its accompanying software, has a variety of Homeland Security applications including border and critical infrastructure perimeter acoustic surveillance. The prototype sensor has performed extremely well in the test environment, successfully detecting and localizing birds, bats, aircraft, water craft, vehicles, people walking and talking. The ACWA is being redesigned to provide a high value, low cost perimeter surveillance solution, operating independently or in conjunction with other sensors to minimize false alarms.