Sky Research tackles buried munitions, IED problem
From our weekly issue dated December 09, 2009
Congressman Greg Walden (left) and Dr. Jack Foley of Sky Research during a recent tour. (Photo by Michelle Binker, Illinois Valley News)
Unexploded ordinance (UXO) in obscure locations is a widespread problem worldwide.
From unspent munitions on current and former military sites to landmines and roadside bombs, hidden explosives constitute a prevalent threat to life and limb.
An Oregon-based company tackling this problem is Ashland-based Sky Research, which prides itself on solving environmental remediation issues through innovative technology. It has surmounted the many “barriers to entry” which effectively exclude agile, technologically savvy and hungry small businesses when the U.S. Dept. of Defense (DOD) needs a solution to an extensive problem.
Established at a Kerby homestead in Illinois Valley more than 30 years ago, Sky Research has long been in the business of helping institutions acquire sensor data on a variety of environmental or atmospheric factors using instrument-equipped aircraft. The company’s environmental remediation efforts grew to include detection and assessment of unexploded ordinance through the use of sophisticated Synthetic Aperture Radar, LIDAR and electromagnetic imaging.
Since 2000 the company has gained tens of millions of dollars in DOD contracts for “natural resource and conservation services” – detection and mapping of the location of unspent munitions at military ranges in 44 states. Through collection and analysis of complex geophysical data, objects below the surface can be mapped and differentiated -- and UXOs isolated for excavation.
Using aircraft and vehicle-based sensors, and real-time computer analysis of wide swaths of landscape, small differences in terrain or objects present over time and the location of buried objects can be ascertained.
During the past three and a half years, Sky Research has applied its proven UXO technology to the growing threat of roadside and person-borne improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“We spent several years refining the science, engineering and operations developing the UXO technology,” said Dr. Jack Foley, Sky Research vice president of technology. That said, beating on the door of an exclusive club doesn’t earn instant access.
“What we found is that the problem of IEDs was dominated by the companies you’d expect: Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and ITT and so forth,” explained Foley. “And there were very few -- there were exactly zero -- companies like ours.”
For nearly 18 months the company worked to get involved.
“We just kept showing up,” said Foley.
Founder Sky agrees. “We have been able to muscle through. As an ankle-biter we held on until we get them to agree.”
With solutions on the table and proven technologies, Sky Research gained research and development funding from DOD.
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Further, it has developed a surveillance system designed to detect explosive devices carried on a person. Having undergone numerous assessments, the “rapidly deployable field system” is currently in operational testing in Iraq. Sky Research demonstrated this system’s efficacy during a recent visit by Second District Congressman Greg Walden (R-Hood River).
The Ashland-based company, with offices in Denver, Boston, Vancouver, and Hanover, New Hampshire, is growing quickly to meet the need to detect IEDs precisely, efficiently and with minimum risk to human beings.
“We are growing as fast as we can find the people,” said Foley. The problem of IEDs being employed against U.S. soldiers and others is likely to remain for the foreseeable future.
“We are averaging 200 IED attacks a month -- outside of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Foley said. “It is a pervasive problem with tactical, strategic, humanitarian and economic aspects, and it is not going away.”
Walden, who had helped Sky Research gain a bi-partisan letter of support, expressed relief that a technological solution was being brought to bear on a strategy that has inflicted many casualties on U.S. troops.
“It just makes so much sense,” said Walden, who relayed with astonishment the story of a soldier who’d survived two such explosions in one day.
“If we have this kind of technology, then why are we running these kids through this meat grinder?” Walden asked rhetorically.
“As I get close to this problem,” said Foley, “it is painful because there is not a lot of technology being applied to this problem today. There is a lot of grit and muscle, but not a lot of whiz-bang.
“We have developed and manufactured this equipment here in Ashland and it is on the way to the war-fighters today,” Foley stated.
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