Active Detection of Small UXO-Like Targets Through Measuring Electromagnetic Responses With a Magneto-Inductive Sensor Array
Huan Liu, Changfeng Zhao, Jixuan Zhu, Jian Ge, Haobin Dong, Zheng Liu, Nezih Mrad
Abstract
The mission of detecting and locating unexploded ordnance (UXO) such as the landmine, the improvised explosive devised, etc., is still a challenge to be overcome. In this paper, a new active approach for UXO detection through measuring electromagnetic (EM) response with a magnetic sensor is proposed. To further enhance the magnetic field strength of the UXO, a current-carrying coil is employed to produce a time-varying or steady magnetic field, and a magnetic field modeling of the solenoid structure is built to select optimal coil parameters. To realize three-dimensional imaging, a magnetic field measurement array of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3\times3$ </tex-math></inline-formula> tri-axial magneto-inductive (MI) sensors is constructed, and its major electrical characteristics are evaluated. Finally, a test platform is developed, and the experimental results indicate that the proposed method can detect a plastic anti-personnel UXO down up to a depth of 20.1 cm, improving 50% approximately when compared with a commercial metal detector.