The impact of weighted density distribution function features on landmine detection using hand-held units

Landmine detection using metal detector (MD) and ground penetrating radar (GPR) sensors in hand-held units is a difficult problem. Detection difficulties arise due to: 1) the varying composition and type of metal in landmines, 2) the time-varying nature of background and 3) the variation in height and velocity of the hand-held unit in data measurement. In prior research, spatially distributed MD features were explored for differentiating landmine signatures from background and non-landmine objects. These features were computed based on correlating sequences of MD energy values with six weighted density distribution functions. In this research the effectiveness of these features to detect landmines of varying metal composition and type is investigated. Experimental results are presented from statistical analysis for feature assessment. Preliminary experimental results are also presented for evaluating the impact on MD feature calculations from varying height and sweep rate of the hand-held unit for data acquisition.