Inverse Transmission Line Modeling of GPR for Landmine Detection and Subsurface Parameter Estimation

This paper presents detection of plastic landmines and characterization of subsurface and the target using ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements. The inverse transmission line (TL) modeling approach is used to analyze the characteristics of practical GPR system operating above non-uniform ground. The modeling approach considers the presence of surface roughness, natural clutter, targets and soil moisture. With this model, the time domain signature of electromagnetic (EM) propagation can be assessed. The inverse TL modeling is applied to estimate the characteristic parameters (such as conductivity, magnetic permeability and permittivity) of the subsurface and buried plastic landmines. TL modeling is applied to obtain the reverse solution of the electromagnetic equations. Different scenarios were considered and test signals of the B-scan data are used to test the effectiveness of the method. Simulations of the real data analysis showed the effectiveness of the model and its application to target detection and characterization of the subsurface. Performance of the modeling is analyzed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of the four hypotheses and it has found that 99.5% detection has achieved as the cost of 12% of false alarm. Keywords : Dielectric properties; EM wave propagation; GPR; Parameter estimation; Inverse transmission line.