Ultra-Wideband Radar System for Locating Plastic Mines

The problem of mine detection and location is particularly difficult when the mines are built from a plastic or dielectric material. Metal detectors are able to detect metal mines, but plastic mines blend in very well with the background soil and rocks. A promising approach for detecting plastic mines is the use of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radar. In this project we will explore and develop methods to identify the location of a mine, and to discriminate it from its background. Ther are two methods one might use to identify and locate plastic mines. First, when excited by a UWB pulse, a mine will resonate at one or more of its characteristic frequencies. These radiated characteristic frequencies can be extracted from the scattered field using the matrix pencil technique. Second, one can use polarization diversity to discriminate between rocks and mines. It has been shown that regularly shaped objects such as mines can radiate no cross-polarized signal. In contrast, various natural objects such as rocksare asymmetrical, and will in fact radiate a cross-polarized signal. By employing one or both of these techniques one can hope to solve the most difficult problems in mine location.During Phase I we will design a UWB radar system that will capable of locating and identifying a plastic mine. We will set up a simple system using low voltage electronics and available equipment. We will extract poles using the matrix pencil technique and we will compare the extracted poles to existing theory. We will explore polarization diversity, by considering measuring both polarizations.