FPGA finite difference time domain solver for thermal simulation

The use of infrared (IR) images of the soil is an efficient technique to detect shallowly buried landmines. The detection is possible due to the different thermal properties of the soil and the mine. The core of this technique is the simulation of the heat transfer processes in the soil and at the soil-air interface. Simulation of these processes is a very long-time consuming task on ordinary computers. Its execution on dedicated hardware can reduce the computing time. In this paper we show the architecture of a system that simulates the thermal processes onto an FPGA, showing the feasibility of such a realization.