Imaging standoff detection of explosives by diffuse reflectance IR laser spectroscopy

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate standoff detection of traces of explosives using mid-infrared laser spectroscopy. We apply active laser illumination and use an infrared camera for collection of the diffusely backscattered laser radiation. The key component of the system is an external cavity quantum cascade. Different numerical hyperspectral image analysis methods are evaluated with respect to target detection performance and false alarm rate using both synthetic and real spectroscopic data. Traces of TNT, PETN and RDX could be identified and discriminated against non-hazardous materials by scanning the illumination wavelength over several characteristic absorption features of the explosives. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.