Compound Explosives Detection and Component Analysis via Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy

Abstract

We present qualitative and quantitative component analyses on compound explosives via Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) based on a combination of wavelet thresholding and wavelength selection. Despite its importance, the field of signal processing of THz signals of compound plastic explosives is relatively unexplored. In this paper, experiment results from explosives Composition B-3 and Pentolite are newly presented, suggesting a novel signal processing procedure for in situ compound explosives detection. The proposed signal processing method demonstrates effective component analysis even in noisy and humid environments, showing significant decrease in component concentration percentage error of approximately 22.7% for Composition B-3 and 48.8% for Pentolite.