Hyperspectral infrared techniques for buried landmine detection

Mine detection using infrared techniques is primarily based on exploiting temperature and/or spectral color differences between pixels on the mines and background pixels. The use of spatial information (e.g., size, shape, pattern) can provide additional discriminants, particularly if the mines are resolved into multiple pixels by a high-resolution imaging sensor. An effective mine detection system should be capable of using all available thermal, spectral and spatial differences for discrimination. In the case of surface mines, temperature differences are introduced by the differential thermal mass and thermal inertia of the mine body itself with respect to the surrounding background, while color phenomena are based on the spectral reflectance characteristics of the surface materials on the mine (painted metal, plastics, etc.). IR spectral discriminants for buried mines are created during the mine emplacement process when subsurface soil layers with varying particle size distributions are brought to the surface and intermixed. The major discriminants for detecting buried and surface land mines are described and some of the applicable data processing techniques are discussed