Probability of Detection refers to the likelihood of a search resource finding the object they are searching for if it was in the area they were searching.

Thanks to Koester, Cooper, Frost and Robe’s 2004 study we can now safely say that it is impossible to subjectively estimate POD. No more should we hear supposed Search Managers asking how many clues out of ten would we have found!

In order to calculate POD you need to calculate total track length, know the “sweep width” of the search resource, the size of the area being searched and use “Koopman’s Exponential Detection Function”.