Experimental Validation of an Active Thermal Landmine Detection Technique

Experimental validation is presented, for a new active infrared technique previously proposed by the authors for detecting shallowly buried low-metal-content landmines, based on infrared heaters and low-cost sensors. After a heating phase, temperature anomaly is observed at soil surface during cooling, due to different heat diffusivity of mine materials with respect to the ground. We define two possible landmine presence indicators, namely temperature contrast and cooling rate. Reported results of experiments in dry and moist soil confirm simulations, proving that reliable detection is feasible within 3-5 cm depth, and that dynamical detection performs better, at the price of more repeated measurements.