Multi-feature based detection of landmines using ground penetrating radar

Abstract

In this paper, we present a method for detecting anti-tank or anti-personnel landmines buried in the ground. A set of data generated by a ground penetrating radar is processed to remove the surface reflection and clutter, yielding signals for possible landmines. In order to detect landmines in the signals, features are computed and compared against a database, which contains those of various landmines. Three features are proposed to use; principal components from principal component analysis, Fourier coefficients and singular values from singular value decomposition method, each of which is chosen to represent each landmine uniquely. Detection is performed using Mahalanobis distance-based method. Examples show that the proposed method can effectively detect landmines in various burial condition. © 2010 EMW Publishing. All Rights Reserved.