Browsing by Author "Lombardi, Federico"

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    Characterization of the internal structure of landmines using ground penetrating radar
    (IEEE, 2020-02-13) Lombardi, Federico; Griffiths, Hugh D.; Lualdi, Maurizio; Balleri, Alessio
    One of the principal limitations of employing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) for landmine detection is the presence of clutter, i.e. reflections from the surrounding environment which might interfere with the landmine echoes. Clutter presents similar scattering characteristics of typical targets and may significantly raise the detection threshold of the system. A capability to characterise the internal structure of a buried target might provide key unique information to develop advanced landmine-clutter discrimination algorithms, considering that the presence of internal scattering components can be univocally associated to man-made targets. In this paper, the possibility of identifying and characterising these contributions from the GPR signature of a landmine is numerically assessed and experimentally validated. The simulated response from a landmine-like target shows that the presence of the internal structure generates additional reflection peaks, as a consequence of the layered structure of the object, and the field trials corroborate that it is possible to identify these scattering components and delineate their spatial distribution.
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    Landmine internal structure detection from ground penetrating radar images
    (IEEE, 2018-06-11) Lombardi, Federico; Griffiths, Hugh D.; Balleri, Alessio
    Reliable landmine detection is still an unresolved problem. Demining operations are complex activities because of the large variety of existing landmine types, many different possible soil and terrain conditions, and environmental circumstances. Due to its ability of detecting both metallic and non-metallic objects, ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a promising method for detecting landmines that may allow faster and safer operations. As the performance of GPR is mainly governed by the target signature, the potential of discriminating target based on the presence of internal reflections could be a valuable advantage for identification and recognition process. This study demonstrates that from a set of high resolution GPR slices the internal design of the landmine can be properly imaged and characterised, confirming the applicability of the methodology and the validity of such an approach.