Measurement and signature intelligence
MASINT is defined as scientific and technical intelligence derived from the analysis of data obtained from sensing instruments for the purpose of identifying any distinctive features associated with the source, emitter or sender, to facilitate the latter's measurement and identification.
Astronomers make observations in multiple electromagnetic spectra, ranging through radio waves, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light, into the X-ray spectrum and beyond.
In addition to MASINT, IMINT and HUMINT can subsequently be used to track or more precisely classify targets identified through the intelligence process.
It measures and identifies battlespace entities via multiple means that are difficult to spoof and it provides intelligence that confirms the more traditional sources, but is also robust enough to stand with spectrometry to differentiate between paint and foliage, or recognizing radar decoys because the signal lacks unintentional characteristics of the real radar system.
A good distinction is that a technical intelligence analyst often has possession of a piece of enemy equipment, such as an artillery round, which can be evaluated in a laboratory.
[7] In the context of MASINT, measurement relates to the finite metric parameters of targets and signature covers the distinctive features of phenomena, equipment, or objects as they are sensed by the collection instrument(s).
These trails form distinctive signatures, which can be exploited as reliable discriminators to characterize specific events or disclose hidden targets.
For example, a sensor may provide information on a radar beam, collected as part of Electronics intelligence (ELINT) gathering mission.
Incidental characteristics recorded such as the "spillover" of the main beam (side lobes), or the interference its transmitter produces would come under MASINT.
[13] Orfeo is a dual-use (civilian and military) earth observation satellite network developed jointly between France and Italy.
This office will also provide integrated systems analysis of all possible collection methods against the Soviet antiballistic missile program is an example.
[16] The National Security Archive commented, "In 1987, Deputy Director for Science and Technology Evan Hineman established ... a new Office for Special Projects, concerned not with satellites, but with emplaced sensors—sensors that could be placed in a fixed location to collect signals intelligence or measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) about a specific target.
Such sensors had been used to monitor Chinese missile tests, Soviet laser activity, military movements, and foreign nuclear programs.
The CTBTO runs an International Monitoring System (IMS) of MASINT sensors for verification, which include seismic, acoustic, and radionuclide techniques.
See National technical means of verification for a discussion of the controversies surrounding the ability of the IMS to detect nuclear tests.
Even though today's MASINT is often on the edge of technologies, many of them under high security classification, the techniques have a long history.
Captains of warships, in the age of sail, used his eyes, and his ears, and sense of touch (a wetted finger raised to the breeze) to measure the characteristics of wind and wave.
Medieval fortification engineers would put their ear to the ground to obtain acoustic measurements of possible digging to undermine their walls.
While these methods were replaced with radar for modern counter-battery fire, there is a resurgence of interest in acoustic gunfire locators against snipers and urban terrorists.
Textron says that the ADAS acoustic sensors can track fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and UAVs as well as traditional ground threats.
These RMWS measure temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, visibility and barometric pressure, which can then be sent over commercial or military satellite links.
Employing UGS is especially challenging in urban areas, where there is a great deal more background energy and a need to separate important measurements from them.
Acoustic sensors will need to distinguish vehicles and aircraft from footsteps (unless personnel detection is a goal), and things such as construction blasting.
Wolves are distributed electronic detection nodes with location and classification capability, which may use radiofrequency MASINT techniques along with ELINT methods.
If the Wolves are colocated with jammers or other ECM, and they are very close to the target, they will not need much power to mask the signatures of friendly ground forces, in frequencies used for communications or local detection.
To be more confusing, while MASINT is highly technical and is called such, TECHINT is another discipline, dealing with such things as the analysis of captured equipment.
When the signatures are then correlated to precise geography, or details of an object, the combined information becomes something greater than the whole of its IMINT and MASINT parts.
In the Center for MASINT Studies and Research list, mechanical vibrations, of different sorts, can be measured by geophysical acoustic, electro-optical laser, or radar sensors.
Whisk broom or spotlight sensors have the effect of stopping the scan, and focusing the detector on one part of the swath, typically capturing greater detail in that area.
A coarse spectral analyzer in the visible light spectrum, however, can reveal that the green leaves are painted plastic, and the "tree" is camouflaging something else.
