Land mine detection using fuzzy clustering in DARPA backgrounds: data collected with the Geo-Center ground-penetrating radar

摘要

Fuzzy Clustering is applied to the problem of detecting landmines in Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). The DARPA Backgrounds Data provides a rich source of signatures derived from a cluttered environment with a variety of sensors. One sensor used in the Backgrounds collection was the GPR developed and fielded by Geo-Centers, Inc. This GPR provides a three-dimensional array of intensity returns corresponding to a volume underneath the ground. In this paper, a novel approach to processing that GPR is described. The approach relies on computing edge direction and magnitude features in the volume and comparing them to prototypes generated using fuzzy c-means clustering. A confidence map is generated corresponding to the surface traversed by the system. The confidence map is thresholded to produce detections. Experimental results show a reduction in false alarm rates from about 40% using the standard processing method to about 4% using the three-dimensional, fuzzy clustering method.