Australia — Radar that ‘sees’ through walls wins DSTO Eureka Prize

Radar imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy that can ‘see’ through walls has won the 2011 DSTO Eure­ka Prize, Min­is­ter for Defence Sci­ence and Per­son­nel War­ren Snow­don announced today.

Mr Snow­don pre­sent­ed the $10,000 prize to Pro­fes­sor Sal­im Bouzer­doum from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wol­lon­gong at the Aus­tralian Muse­um Eure­ka Prize awards func­tion in Syd­ney tonight. 

Sup­port­ed by the Defence Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy Organ­i­sa­tion (DSTO), the Eure­ka Prize recog­nis­es out­stand­ing sci­ence in sup­port of Defence or nation­al security. 

“I con­grat­u­late Pro­fes­sor Bouzer­doum for devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions in through-the-wall radar imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy,” Mr Snow­don said. 

“The pro­posed imag­ing sys­tem has sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial to ben­e­fit Defence as well as law enforce­ment, secu­ri­ty and counter-ter­ror­ism agencies. 

“There are sit­u­a­tions where it is essen­tial to detect peo­ple hid­den inside a closed build­ing and to know their pre­cise location. 

“Sol­diers, fire fight­ers, police offi­cers and secu­ri­ty per­son­nel will be able to use the radar imager because it allows them to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between tar­gets, or peo­ple in dan­ger, from oth­er objects behind a wall.” 

Anoth­er break­through is the system’s abil­i­ty to focus on the tar­get or action behind the wall by reduc­ing sur­face reflec­tions and remov­ing back­ground clut­ter (such as fur­ni­ture or sta­tionery objects) from the received signal. 

“Giv­en fur­ther devel­op­ment, the tech­nol­o­gy will result in a low-cost, portable sys­tem to pro­vide high-res­o­lu­tion 3‑D imag­ing in real time,” Mr Snow­don said. 

“This work has the poten­tial to play a vital role in pro­tect­ing Aus­tralia from ter­ror­ism and crime while assist­ing author­i­ties in times of nation­al dis­as­ters. Pro­fes­sor Bouzerdoum’s research posi­tions Aus­tralia as a lead­ing nation in the devel­op­ment of through-the-wall radar imag­ing technology.” 

Pro­fes­sor Bouzer­doum is Asso­ciate Dean (Research) and Pro­fes­sor of Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing at the Fac­ul­ty of Infor­mat­ics of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wol­lon­gong, and a Mem­ber of the Aus­tralian Research Coun­cil Col­lege of Experts. He has been a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor at var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties in France and the US. 

Media contacts: 

Mar­cus But­ler (Mr Snow­don): 0417 917 796 

Jim­my Hafes­jee (DSTO): 02 6128 6376 or 0404 042 457 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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