Multisensor, remotely-operated force protection mine detection
Despite improvements in both military and civilian mine detection equipment, humanitarian demining remains a slow, hazardous, and labor-intensive task. The Force Protection Demining System (FPDS) seeks to provide an efficient and reliable, teleoperated, mine detection platform to eradicate explosive ordnance and allow reoccupation of mined areas by local inhabitants. The FPDS is equipped with electromagnetic induction (EMI) and ground penetrating synthetic aperture radar (GPSAR) sensor arrays integrated onto a remote-controlled, rubber-tracked vehicle. The multi-sensor detection system fuses source sensor data and/or extracted sensor information to provide an increased level of mine detection while minimizing false alarms. Extensive preliminary testing at test facilities yields results that define system integration issues and constrain detection performance for each sensor array. An important focus of our testing is the characterization of signal-, image-, and physics-based features used in discriminating targets from clutter. Acquisition of independent and dual-mode data collected over simulants, landmines, and UXO facilitates the development of a preliminary library of system target responses from which optimal features are determined. The developed detection software system also exploits spatial registration and multi-sensor data fusion algorithms to provide real-time automatic target recognition information to the user.
