Multisensor, Remotely-Operated force Protection Mine Detection

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