Abstract
A three-dimensional (3-D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm is used in order to simulate ground penetrating radar (GPR) for landmine detection. Two bowtie GPR transducers are chosen for the simulations and two widely employed antipersonnel (AP) landmines, namely PMA-1 and PMN are used. The validity of the modeled antennas and landmines is tested through a comparison between numerical and laboratory measurements. The modeled AP landmines are buried in a realistically simulated soil. The geometrical characteristics of soil’s inhomogeneity are modeled using fractal correlated noise, which gives rise to Gaussian semivariograms often encountered in the field. Fractals are also employed in order to simulate the roughness of the soil’s surface. A frequency-dependent complex electrical permittivity model is used for the dielectric properties of the soil, which relates both the velocity and the attenuation of the electromagnetic waves with the soil’s bulk density, sand particles density, clay fraction, sand fraction, and volumetric water fraction. Debye functions are employed to simulate this complex electrical permittivity. Background features like vegetation and water puddles are also included in the models and it is shown that they can affect the performance of GPR at frequencies used for landmine detection (0.5–3 GHz). It is envisaged that this modeling framework would be useful as a testbed for developing novel GPR signal processing and interpretations procedures and some preliminary results from using it in such a way are presented.
Highlights
N UMEROUS demining methods have been suggested over the years, from the most common and one of the first humanitarian demining methods used, the metal detector [1]– [3] to trained dogs, trained rats [4], chemical methods, nuclear methods [1], [5] and geophysical methods like acoustic/seismic [5], [6], and electrical resistivity techniques [7], [8].Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has a wide range of applications [9] and it has been extensively used for landmine detection [10]
In order to investigate the effects of vegetation to AP landmine detection using GPR, we propose an algorithm that models the geometrical characteristics of vegetation using statistical properties
In all of the models, the discretization step was set to Δx = Δy = Δz = 1 mm and the time step was equal to the Courant limit for the 3-D finite-difference timedomain (FDTD) scheme (Δt = 1.925 ps) [15]
Summary
N UMEROUS demining methods have been suggested over the years, from the most common and one of the first humanitarian demining methods used, the metal detector [1]– [3] to trained dogs, trained rats [4], chemical methods, nuclear methods [1], [5] and geophysical methods like acoustic/seismic [5], [6], and electrical resistivity techniques [7], [8]. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has a wide range of applications [9] and it has been extensively used for landmine detection [10]. The ability to detect plastic landmines and the greater depth range, compared with metal detectors in dry environments with no clay or saturated soils, are some of the reasons why GPR is considered as an attractive demining method [10].
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