Electromagnetic Induction Sensing for Buried Explosive Hazards Detection

Detection and identification of subsurface improvised explosive devices (IED) remains one of the most pressing military and civilian problems worldwide. Usually, IED-s are made only with low conducting and/or no metallic parts and therefore are undetectable with conventional metal detectors and electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensors. To overcome this limitation and to fill the gap between the conventional EMI induction and radar sensing frequency bands, our group has developed a next generation High Frequency EMI (HFEMI) sensor, operating between 50 kHz and 15 MHz. Both numerical and in-lab experimental studies have showed that the new EMI sensor is able to detect high conducting (metals) as well as low conducting (carbon rods), low metal content (short wires) and non-conducting (voids in conducting soil) targets. For validating the system's detection capabilities under real world conditions, the system was deployed at an IED test site and EMI data were collected for a set of targets. In this paper, measured and numerical data are presented and analyzed for subsurface IEDs.