Use of elastic waves for the detection of buried land mines

A prototype system that employs seismic surface (Rayleigh) waves and non-contact displacement sensors for the detection of buried landmines is being developed. The operating principle of this system is to interrogate the ground surface motion, resulting from a remote seismic source, in a region surrounding, and immediately above, a mine using a two-dimensional array of non-contact sensors. The data from this array are then processed in the space and time domains to form images. These images emphasize specific features of the ground motion, which have been linked empirically, through both numerical modeling and experimental studies, to the presence of landmines. The images formed in this way show a large contrast (~30 dB) between mines and background reverberation and a large contrast (>20 dB) between mines and mine-sized clutter objects. They also appear to be robust in simulations of realistic burial scenarios involving a variety of mine sizes and depths along with clutter objects in close proximity