Abstract

Nonlinear Acoustic Techniques for Landmine Detection

M.S.Korman (Physics Department, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, USA); J.M.Sabatier (National Center for Physical Acoustics, University of Mississippi, Mississippi, USA)

e-mail: korman@nadn.navy.mil

Donskoy [SPIE Proceedings 3392, 211-217 (1998); 3710, 239-246 (1999)] has suggested a nonlinear technique that can detect an acoustically compliant buried mine that is insensitive to relatively noncompliant targets. (Utilizing both techniques could eliminate certain types of false alarms.) Airborne sound at two primary frequencies f1 and f2 undergo acoustic-to-seismic coupling and a superimposed seismic wave interacts with the compliant mine and soil to generate a difference frequency component that can effect the vibration velocity at the surface. Geophone measurements scanning the soil's surface at the difference frequency (chosen at a resonance) profile the mine with more relative sensitivity than the linear profiles - but off the mine some nonlinearity exists. Amplitude dependent frequency response curves for a harmonically driven mass-soil oscillator are used to find the nonlinearity of the soil acting as a "soft" spring. Donskoy's nonlinear mechanism (over the mine) involves a simple model of the top surface of the mine-soil planar surface separating two elastic surfaces. During the compression phase of the wave, the surfaces stay together and then separate under the tensile phase due to a relatively high compliance of the mine. This "bouncing" soil-mine interface is thought to be a bi-modular oscillator that is inherently nonlinear.

Section : 11