Most modern EMI mine detectors can detect the very small
conductive and/or ferromagnetic parts of typical mines with
relative ease. However, they also respond significantly to certain
soils that contain lossy ferromagnetic minerals. In some special
environments such as ocean beaches, conductivity of the host soil
may also cause a response. Characterizing and modelling both the
various target response mechanisms and the EMI detectors
quantitatively would be relatively straightforward if it were not
for the fact that most modern EMI detectors operate in time domain
and use different current waveforms and time gates to observe
response. Furthermore, much of the information about targets and
interferences and even instrumental spectral limitations is
observational rather than analytical data.
In this paper, we put forward a spectral representation method
that can be incorporated into both EMI data gathering and
instrument modelling and which facilitates efficient quantitative
simulation of arbitrary time- domain detection systems. The
methodology and examples of its use are presented. Pure induction
response from the ground is modelled with a sum-over-N-elements
transfer function in which the kernel elements are single pole,
pure damping responses which are log-spaced over the spectral
range of interest. Instrument transfer functions can be described
with a standard sparse pole and zero representation (located
anywhere in the damped frequency half plane), if required. Model
fitting techniques employing generalized inversion controls are
used to go back and forth between frequency and time domain and
the set of model parameters.
A variety of metal detectors are available for the detection of buried metallic targets in general and for humanitarian
demining in particular. No one detector is optimal in all environments: variations in soil conductivity,
and more importantly, frequency dependent soil magnetic susceptibility can favor one design over another. The
use of computer modeling for assessing different designs is straightforward in principle, at least to first order,
but still difficult in practice.
The Geophysics Lab of the University of Toronto is attempting to address this problem in two ways. The
first is by assembling the required computational algorithms to do this into a single simulation code with a
straightforward GUI, intended to be public domain as a MATLAB code. The second, the subject of a companion
paper in this conference, is by making measurements of the electromagnetic properties of difficult soils, and finding
semi-analytic representations of these responses suitable for modeling purposes. The final version of the code,
when completed, is to handle single or multiple transmitter and receiver coils of circular or polygonal shape,
general transmitter current waveforms, arbitrary transmitter orientations and survey paths, small targets with
frequency-dependent anisotropic responses (permitting both magnetic and inductive responses to be calculated),
embedded in multi-layered half spaces with both conductivity and frequency-dependent susceptibility (so-called
"difficult soils"). The current state of the simulation code and examples of its use will be described in this paper.
To improve the success of electromagnetic induction (EMI) metal detectors in identifying anti-personnel land mines buried in slightly ferromagnetic natural soils, we need to know what range of soil physical properties must be dealt with. We have therefore built a laboratory instrument for measuring complex magnetic susceptibility in inch-sized samples over a frequency range from 100 Hz to ~ 70 kHz with errors of a few percent of the sample susceptibility in a sample of ~1 milli-SIU volume susceptibility, (i.e. ~30 micro-SIU). The instrument is a symmetrical, six coil, induction spectrometer. A pair of transmitter coils in Helmholtz configuration generates a uniform magnetic field over the sample region. The magnetic moment induced in the sample is detected (mainly) by a pair of receiver coils which are closer to the sample than the transmitter pair and also (nearly) in Helmholtz configuration, so as to provide uniform sensitivity over the whole sample region. The coupling of the main receiver pair to the transmitter pair is annulled with a second pair of coils (called the reference receiver pair) situated outside the transmitter pair. The transmitter coils are energized with a wideband current. Data acquisition is by a PC computer with a 192 kHz, 24 bit, 2 channel sound card using software in written in MatLab. Although our instrument is still a prototype and its design continues to evolve, we have measured susceptibility spectra of some samples from de-mining projects in areas where false alarms are a problem and have found dispersive susceptibilities.
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