Research and Development on the Field of Mine Detection.
Abstract
Due to the experience made over several decades in the field of mine detection it became obvious that the identification or at least the classification of detected objects will be indispensable because of the false alarm rate which would nullify the success of any mine detection system. This meant for a mine detector based on microwave technology that additional information had to be gained by exploiting considerably higher frequencies than had been used in the past. Since in wet soil high frequencies are subject to an extreme attenuation, a pulse radar system with an extremely clean pulse on an extremely clean baseline had to be built. By introducing a completely unconventional method for diminishing the radar cross section of the antenna, this clutter could be reduced by almost two orders of magnitude, thus achieving a cleanliness of the pulse which had never been reached before. Thus it became evident that the system internal clutter can be reduced to a level which possibly will allow the future identification or classification of mines. As for a final mine detector, an antenna line array is unavoidable and the antenna internal clutter as well as the clutter generated by the multiple reflections between soil and antenna will increase due to the larger number of antenna elements involved, an additional improvement has to be achieved in order to at least maintain or even increase the performance now achieved when using a complete line array.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA325260
Entities
People
- Guenter Wichmann