Laboratory evaluation of the EIT technology capability to detect mines buried in an underwater sediment layer

The work reported in this paper is focused on the particular problem of detecting mines buried in the sediment layer of shallow water environments. This is relevant to the detection of mines buried in beaches, surf zone or wet agricultural areas such as rice paddy fields. A reduced scale Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) detector is used in a laboratory setting to evaluate the capability of the EIT technology to detect mine-like objects buried in a layer of sand, under-water. Detection results are presented for two correlation methods developed using signatures measured for known mine-like objects located at several relative positions with respect to an electrode array. Discrimination results are also presented for two mine-like objects of similar shape and different size. Finally, recommendations are made for future research and implementation.