Landmines have been laid in conflicts around the world and continue to maim or kill civilians and soldiers.
Metal detectors (MD) have been used successfully to detect mines, but have difficulty detecting mines with little or no
metal content. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) systems have successfully been used to supply detection capabilities
where metal detectors fail. Handheld devices using such sensors have historically been used in battle but they can put the
user at high risk under direct fire from the enemy while exposed during some operations. We describe a robotic,
explosive hazard, anti-personnel/anti-tank mine detection system featuring dual-sensor GPR/MD capability for enhanced
mine detection and for removing the soldier from the mine field.
The MD is a broadband electromagnetic induction sensor to help discriminate between buried landmines and
metal clutter. The sensor operates in the frequency domain and collects data at 21 logarithmically spaced frequencies
from 300 Hz to 90 kHz. The GPR is a broadband stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) sensor operating from
700 MHz to 4 GHz in 10 MHz steps. The GPR employs an array of low cross section inverted V-dipoles swept over the
scene. The GPR data will also support 3D synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to aid in user target verification.
The legacy AN/PSS-14 (Army-Navy Portable Special Search-14) Handheld Mine Detecting Set (also called
HSTAMIDS for Handheld Standoff Mine Detection System) has proven itself over the last 7 years as the state-of-the-art
in land mine detection, both for the US Army and for Humanitarian Demining groups. Its dual GPR (Ground Penetrating
Radar) and MD (Metal Detection) sensor has provided receiver operating characteristic curves (probability of detection
or Pd versus false alarm rate or FAR) that routinely set the mark for such devices. Since its inception and type-classification
in 2003 as the US (United States) Army standard, the desire for use of the AN/PSS-14 against alternate
threats - such as bulk explosives - has recently become paramount. To this end, L-3 CyTerra has developed and tested
bulk explosive detection and discrimination algorithms using only the Stepped Frequency Continuous Wave (SFCW)
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) portion of the system, versus the fused version that is used to optimally detect land
mines. Performance of the new bulk explosive algorithm against representative zero-metal bulk explosive target and
clutter emplacements is depicted, with the utility to the operator also described.
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