Automatic detection of position and depth of potential UXO using continuous wavelet transforms

摘要

Inversion algorithms for UXO discrimination using magnetometery have recently been used to achieve very low False Alarm Rates, with 100% recovery of detected ordnance. When there are many UXO and/or when the UXO are at significantly different depths, manual estimation of the initial position and scale for each item, is a laborious and time-consuming process. In this paper, we utilize the multi-resolution properties of wavelets to automatically estimate both the position and scale of dipole peaks. The Automated Wavelet Detection (AWD) algorithm that we develop consists of four-stages: (i) maxima and minima in the data are followed across multiple scales as we zoom with a continuous wavelet transform; (ii) the decay of the amplitude of each peak with scale is used to estimate the depth to source; (iii) adjacent maxima and minima of comparable depth are joined together to form dipole anomalies; and (iv) the relative positions and amplitudes of the extrema, along with their depths, are used to estimate a dipole model. We demonstrate the application of the AWD algorithm to three datasets with different characteristics. In each case, the method rapidly located the majority of dipole anomalies and produced accurate estimates of dipole parameters.