Landmines and UXO (UneXploded Ordnance 1 ) represent a constant and long-lasting threat to the life of millions of individuals. Moreover, these weapons have a strong socio-economic impact on contaminated countries as they involve serious effects as the loss of agricultural fields or access to water. Demining is a critical issue since contaminated areas are large and their clearance often requir...

In recent years it has become apparent that the performance of detection sensors for land mines and UXO may be seriously hampered by the magnetic behavior of soils. In tropical soils it is common to find large concentrations of iron oxide minerals, which are the predominant cause for soil magnetism. However, a wide range of factors such as parent material, environmental conditions, soil age, an...

A new circle detection algorithm based on the gradient of the intensity image is proposed. The method relies on two conditions. The “gradient angle compatibility condition” constraints the gradient of a given percentage of the pixels belonging to some digital circles of radius in the range of radii to detect to point towards the centre of the circle or in the opposite direction. The “curvature ...

The disposal of unexploded ordnance (UXOs) at sea is a global problem. mapping and remediation historic UXOs can be assisted by autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) carrying sensor payloads such as synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) optical cameras. AUVs image large areas the seafloor in high resolution, motivating an automated approach to UXO detection. Modern methods commonly use supervised mach...

SHORT ABSTRACT: This paper describes the theoretical analysis of a method to detect and classify objects from magnetic maps. The method, originally designed to detect buried UXO by land survey with a magnetometer, is adapted here for underwater survey with a gradiometer. Evaluation is performed on simulated data in order to predict the performance of the adapted algorithm to this new situation....

A differentially steered three-wheeled vehicle has proven to be an effective platform for outdoor navigation. Many applications for this vehicle configuration, including planetary exploration and landmine/UXO location, require accurate localization. In spite of known problems, odometry, also called dead reckoning, remains one of the least expensive and most popular methods for localization. Thi...

This paper addresses the problem of identifying metallic objects in buried landmines and discriminating them from clutter using low frequency electromagnetic induction (EMI) techniques. From dipolar fields, the magnetic polarizability tensor extracted from the target response can be used as a basis for identification. Here, a deterministic nonlinear optimization method is presented to estimate ...