Laser Acoustic Detection of Buried Landmines

The detection and neutralization of landmines is an important task because of military, humanitarian, and environmental impacts. Metal detectors, the most commonly used devices for landmine detection, suffer from inability to detect plastic mines and differentiate a real mine from metallic debris.

One of the new most successful landmine detection methods uses low frequency acoustic waves in the ground. The method is based on excitation of mechanical vibration of the ground, using acoustic or seismic waves, and sensing vibration of the ground surface in many points remotely with a laser vibrometer. A buried landmine can be detected by an abnormality in the vibration image of the ground surface. Performance of laser Doppler vibrometers currently used in acoustic landmine detection is affected by ambient vibration.  They require operation from a mechanically stable platform that seriously limits application of the acoustic method.

 

The goal of this project is to develop laser interferometric sensors for the stand-off rapid measurement of vibration fields of the ground, which have low sensitivity to ambient vibrations.