Landmine detection by means of ground penetrating radar: a rule-based approach

Abstract

For a humanitarian landmine detection system to be of practical value it has to meet the following criteria: detection must be performed in real-time from a moving platform; plastic mines must be reliably detected; and the false alarm rate should be kept to a minimum. Ground penetrating radar is a promising technology for the detection of landmines with low metal content. The improved algorithms presented in this paper can meet the above mentioned criteria to a large extent. Clutter removal is performed by an adaptive filter which removes virtually all background clutter in real time and can adapt to changing soil characteristics. Classification is performed by a new rule-based classifier capable of detecting both metal and plastic anti-tank mines. Despite the fact that the algorithms are currently implemented in Matlabr, mine detection can be performed on a vehicle moving at 9 km/h