No abstract

The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggesstions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA, 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any oenalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS.a. REPORT Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) 14. ABSTRACT SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF:LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) and Raman Spectroscopy address all five threats (CBRNE) for security and force protection applications. Military and civilian First Responders could utilize LIBS for CB, explosive hazards, suspicious powder, and hazardous spill analysis. Industrial applications include hazardous materials, quality control and process monitoring. Importantly, LIBS can identify innocuous materials on-site and in real-time saving time and money in response to hazardous material spills. A3 Technologies, LLC established Number of Presentations:0.00Non Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceeding publications (other than abstracts):1. *Schenk, E.R. "Elemental analysis of unprocessed cotton by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS): a forensic application of geographic provenancing", Graduate LIBS 2008 (Berlin)"Application of Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for the Effective Management of Hazardous Materials Incidents" Summary: First Responders are routinely faced with the challenge of rapidly and reliably identifying unknown substances encountered in a wide range of field conditions. An extensive array of field tests and portable instrumentation have been developed and/or adapted for the purpose of detecting the presence of chemical, biological, nuclear, radiological, or explosive (CBNRE) threats, toxic industrial materials (TIM's), pharmaceuticals, and illegal drugs, along with the benign materials (e.g., harmless white powders) commonly encountered during First Responder operations. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a sensor technology that could allow First Responders to manage hazardous materials incidents more efficiently, effectively, and economically than previously possible using multiple pieces of equipment. The technique provides nearly instantaneous elemental analysis of solids, liquids and gases, does not require any sample preparation, and is amenable for use as a robust, man-portable device in the field in either sta...

The ability to rapidly conduct in-situ chemical analysis of multiple samples of soil and other geological materials in the field offers many advantages over a traditional approach that involves collecting samples for subsequent examination in the laboratory. This study explores the application of complementary spectroscopic analyzers and a data fusion methodology for the classification/discrimination of >100 soil samples from sites across the United States. Commercially available, handheld analyzers for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRFS), Raman spectroscopy (RS), and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) were used to collect data both in the laboratory and in the field. Following a common data pre-processing protocol, principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLSDA) were used to build classification models. The features generated by PLSDA were then used in a hierarchical classification approach to assess the relative advantage of information fusion, which increased classification accuracy over any of the individual sensors from 80-91% to 94% and 64-93% to 98% for the two largest sample suites. The results show that additional testing with data sets for which classification with individual analyzers is modest might provide greater insight into the limits of data fusion for improving classification accuracy.

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An 18-month multidisciplinary project was undertaken by JRPlumer & Associates, LLC and four subcontractors that had three technical objectives: (i) to upgrade current handheld technology for chemical analysis by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRFS), Raman spectroscopy (RS), and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS); (ii) to design a multisensor system based on these technologies for the rapid, in-situ chemical analysis of soils and other materials of military interest; and (iii) to investigate the classification/discrimination performance benefit that might be achieved through advanced signal pre-processing and data fusion with XRFS, RS, and LIBS analyses acquired for four suites of natural soils. Accomplishments of the program in the latter area are described in this report.