Patent ID: 8583573

Claim:
A method of augmenting a mine sensor system, said method comprising: reading a list of mine-like contacts (MLCs) generated by the mine sensor system or a device in communication with the mine sensor system, where a mine-like contact occupies a position within an area having a depth of water that is known at least approximately, where a MLC is a candidate target; identifying regions with unusually high MLC density for more detailed analysis; selecting a pair of candidate targets having a number of intervening candidate targets, said candidate targets having positions which are two candidate end points that spatially define a line that potentially could be a mine line with a mine line region, and the number of intervening candidate targets could be members of the mine line region; using probabilistic spatial analysis of the targets (PSAT) to determine the probability of obtaining a count of targets in the mine line region formed by the two candidate points at least as large as the observed value given the target count in an adjacent control area, and to analyze statistically significant anomalies to classify a mine line as either fixed-spaced or random; extending the line and correcting the slope, iteratively, to capture any MLCs from the list that fall in the line region and adjusting for imprecise end point selection; using bookkeeping protocols to keep track of the MLC classifications as the mine line detection proceeds, where each of the targets falls into one of three classes: a) fixed, where the MLC fits into a mine line pattern with a fixed mine spacing; b) random, where the MLC fits into a mine line pattern with random mine spacing; or c) false alarm, where the MLC does not fit into a mine line pattern and is subsequently not considered a mine; classifying mine lines as either fixed-spaced mine lines or random-spaced mine lines, where fixed-spaced mine lines never intersect and have fixed spacing between MLCs; and selecting another pair of candidate targets from the list, and repeating the analysis until the list is exhausted.