Site Description

Located in Yuba and Nevada Counties, California, the former Camp Beale property was acquired by the U.S. Government prior to 1940 and established as an Army training post. In early 1948, the Air Force acquired this land, designated it as Beale AFB, and used it to train bombardier-navigators in radar techniques. By 1956, the Navy began using two of the target areas until 1957. At that time, a large portion of the site was declared excess. Currently, the former Camp Beale area consists of approximately 60,000 acres with multiple land use areas. Some are undeveloped and used for cattle grazing, wildlife, and recreation areas, and others are rural residential areas. The ESTCP demonstration was conducted in a portion of the Spenceville Wildlife Area that was used for mortar and artillery training.

Suspected Munitions Present at the Demonstration Site

37-mm and 105-mm projectiles60-mm and 81-mm mortars

Demonstration Summary

This demonstration was designed to investigate classification at a site that is partially wooded with a mix of munitions types. These two features increase the site’s complexity, and both characteristics are likely to be encountered on production sites. The tree cover poses a navigational and positioning challenge by increasing the difficulty of obtaining accurate GPS readings. This site provided an opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of classification given a variety of site conditions.  

The demonstration area totaled approximately 10 acres divided into sub-areas—treed areas where the portable systems were demonstrated, open areas where Geometrics’ MetalMapper (MM) was demonstrated, and an open area where both were demonstrated. The Geonics EM61-MK2 cart surveyed all three sub-areas at 100% coverage to provide a baseline for the demonstration. The MM was used for cued interrogation of anomalies in the open areas of the site, and the three developmental EMI systems—the Naval Research Laboratory’s TEMTADS 2x2 array, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s man-portable Berkeley UXO Discriminator (BUD), and Sky Research’s Man-Portable Vector (MPV) handheld system—were used to perform cued interrogation in the treed areas.  All of the data were analyzed by several groups using a number of feature extraction and classification algorithms. Demonstration teams were composed of both developers and production contractors.

The site was seeded with inert munitions, and all anomalies were dug to confirm technology performance. Demonstrators were scored based on their ability to eliminate nonhazardous items while retaining all detected munitions.

Results and Conclusions

All sensors achieved exceptional classification performance on a site with the presence of a small munition type, tree cover, and sloped terrain. In their first Pilot Program demonstration, the three man-portable systems performed nearly identically and were able to achieve 100% classification for targets of interest (TOI) while rejecting more than 80% of the nonhazardous clutter. The man-portable sensors also performed equivalently to the MM, which has been successfully validated in this and several prior live site demonstrations.

Summary Report

Summary Report: Former Camp Beale - MetalMapper Demonstration

 Summary Report: Former Camp Beale - Portable Sensors Demonstration

Demonstration Projects

Demonstration and Validation of Statistical Analysis Techniques for TOI Discrimination Using Advanced EMI Sensor SystemsLead Organization: Signal Innovations Group, Inc.

Live Site DoD EngagementLead Organization: U.S. Army ESCH

Demonstration Report: Advanced EMI Models for Live-Site UXO Discrimination at Former Camp BealeLead Organization: Sky Research, Inc.

Technical Report: Practical Strategies for UXO DiscriminationLead Organization: Sky Research, Inc.

Technical Report: Man-Portable Vector EMI Sensor for Full UXO CharacterizationLead Organization: Sky Research, Inc.

Cost and Performance Report: Man-Portable Vector EMI Sensor for Full UXO CharacterizationLead Organization: Sky Research, Inc.

Final Report: Demonstration of MetalMapper Static Data Acquisition and Data Analysis at Former Camp BealeLead Organization: Parsons

Technical Report: Demonstration of Advanced EMI Classification Technologies - Man-Portable TEM and MetalMapperLead Organization: CH2M Hill

Technical Report: Advanced EMI Data Collection Systems' DemonstrationLead Organization: Naval Research Laboratory/Nova Research, Inc.

Cost and Performance Report: Advanced EMI Data Collection Systems' DemonstrationLead Organization: Naval Research Laboratory/Nova Research, Inc.

Handheld BUD DemonstrationLead Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory