An investigation of acoustic-to-seismic coupling to detect buried antitank landmines

Abstract

When an acoustic wave strikes the ground surface, energy is coupled into the motion of the fluid/solid frame comprising the ground. This phenomenon is termed acoustic-to-seismic (A/S) coupling In the ground, the Biot Type Il or Biot slow waves travel with a speed well below the speed of sound in air. The porous nature of the ground causes the entering acoustic wave to bend toward the normal and the acoustic wave propagates downward into the ground. When an object is buried a few cm below the ground surface, it distinctly changes the A/S coupled motion. These changes can be sensed by measuring vibrational particle velocity on the ground surface. Taking advantage of a noncontact remote measurement technique, the A/S coupling measurements for antitank landmine detection are conducted using a laser Doppler-vibrometer (LDV). Recent field measurements in both calibration and blind mine lanes and the resulting data analysts, which demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique, are described in this paper.