Ultrawide-bandwidth fully-polarimetric ground penetrating radar classification of subsurface unexploded ordnance

An ultrawide-bandwidth (UWB) ground penetrating radar (GPR) was used to collect fully-polarimetric backscattered data from 10 to 800 MHz using a dual-polarization version of the previously developed dielectric-loaded horn-fed bow-tie (HFB) kantenna [1]. Special processing algorithms were developed to extract the polarization, orientation, depth, and length features of the target under investigation. The polarization and resonance features were utilized to discriminate subsurface ordnance from false-alarm objects that do not have elongated bodies. The classification of a specific type of unexploded ordnance (UXO) was also performed using the known length information. The processed results obtained from an initial blind field test show a very encouraging discrimination performance.