This paper investigates the feasibility of detecting plastic antipersonnel land mines buried in lossy, dispersive, rough soils using a stepped-frequency ultra wideband (WB) ground-penetrating radar (GPR). Realistic land mine scenarios were modeled using a two-dimensional (2D) finite difference frequency domain (FDFD) technique. Assuming normal incidence plane wave excitation, the scattered fields were generated over a large frequency bandwidth (.5 to 5 GHz) for a variety of mine-like shapes, different soil types, and multiple receiver locations. The simulation results showed that for a ground penetration sensor located just above the soil surface, the strong reflection signals received from the rough ground surface obscured the buried target's frequency response signal. The simulated GPR WB frequency response data at each receiver location was transformed to the time domain using the fast Fourier transform. Time domain processing permits high resolution measurement of target features that are invariant to the ground roughness and also that are dependent on the soil characteristics as well as the burial depth and size of the mine. Specifically, two or more characteristic timing peaks are observed in the simulation results suggesting that the ultra-wideband spectral radar response may yield particular advantages not exploited by currently employed detection systems. It is also shown that by using time-gating to remove the strong ground reflection signals, the target signals are selectively enhanced (as expected), but more surprisingly, the target frequency response signature is almost completely recovered.
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