Identification of Soil-Environmental Factors Influencing the Reliability of Using Ground Penetrating Radar to Detect Antipersonnel Landmines.

Buried landmines are hazardous to soldiers as well as civilians and also a source of environmental pollution. It is very necessary to detect and remove the buried landmines. However, the operation of detection and removal of landmines are extremely dangerous and expensive. The identification of various natural factors which acts as a barrier in detecting landmines is very helpful in case of landmine removal operation. Previous research shows that there are some specific soil factors which affect in the responses of ground penetrating radar (GPR) while detecting landmines and the factors sometimes may lead to reduction in effectiveness of GPR instrument also. An experiment with ten various kind of soils were conducted to identify the physical, chemical and soil environmental factors which lead to suppress the response of GPR in detecting two kinds of antipersonnel landmines.  Initial soil properties (both physical and chemical) were tested and the hourly variations in moisture, temperature and electrical conductivity were noted by using soil sensors from Decagon devices to study the daily changes in soil environmental factors. GPR responses for each antipersonnel landmine in replicates were studied for three to five times weekly for ten months.  Soil factors such as texture, Ca content, plasticity index, temperature, moisture and electrical conductivity of each soil were compared along with GPR responses for each soil and the specific soil environmental factors that have effects on the reliability in detecting two different antipersonnel landmines were identified.