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Patrick Verlindea, Marc Acheroya, Giuseppe Nestib and Alois SieberbaRoyal Military Academy/Signal and Image Centre, Brussels, Belgium

bJRC/Technologies for Detection and Positioning, Ispra, Italy

Abstract

The Joint Multi-sensor Mine-signatures (MsMs) projectwas started in the year 2000 and has as its main goal to or-ganize and execute an experimental campaign for collect-ing data of buried land-mines with multiple sensors. Thesedata sets are being made widely available to researchersand developers working amongst else on sensor fusion,and signal processing for improved detection and identi-fication of land-mines. The outdoor test facility (6 x 80 m)of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Com-mission, located at Ispra (Italy), houses the test minefield.Six test strips of 6 x 6 m consisting of different soil types(cluttered grassy terrain, loamy soil, sandy soil, clay soil,soil with high content of organic matter, and ferromagneticsoil) are complemented with one reference test strip of 6 x6 m consisting of pure sand. The list of objects buried in theminefield includes mine simulants of three different dimen-sions with either a low or a high metal content, referencetargets for position referencing and calibration checking,and clutter objects including empty bullet cartridges, metalcans, barbed wire, stones, wood, plastic boxes, etc . Thistest minefield is going to be left intact for a long period, inorder to be able to perform multiple runs on it. For thetest campaign of the year 2000, the core sensors were ametal detector, a ground penetrating radar, a microwaveradiometer, and several thermal infrared imagers. The firstdata sets are in the process of being released right now.This paper aims to prepare the first results to be obtainedby fusing the data coming from these different sensors, bypresenting the available datasets.

Keywords: Humanitarian de-mining, multi-sensor datafusion, MsMs project database.

1. INTRODUCTION

In the field of humanitarian demining more and morepeople feel that fundamental advances can be made byusing a combination of mine detection sensors, as opposedto a single sensor1–5. In this multi-sensor approach, an im-portant part of the research deals with the question of howto combine the (information coming from the) differentsensors in an optimal way. A major problem however alongthis main research axis is the lack of (well-documented and

well-registered) multi-sensor data. This kind of data is in-deed needed in order to develop, experiment, and validatesensor or data fusion (to be more general) algorithms. Inorder to cope with this lack of multi-sensor data, the JointResearch Centre (JRC) of the European Union has decidedto sponsor a Joint Multi-sensor Mine-signatures measure-ment campaign (called the MsMs project). Detailed infor-mation about this project and its results are available viathe web site: http://demining.jrc.it/msms. In the next sec-tion, the most relevant characteristics with respect to thispaper are presented.

2. THE TEST SET-UPIn order to realize the ambition of performing an ex-

perimental campaign, in which the data from all sensors iswell documented and correctly registered, a common testprotocol has been developed. In this test protocol impor-tant issues such as the definition of coordinate referencesystems, the positioning of the scanning frame, the dataacquisition, the definition and the acquisition of the me-teorological parameters, the definition and the acquisitionof other environmental parameters, and the specificationsof data formats are determined. The complete test proto-col is available via the web site of the project. The outdoortest facility of the Joint Research Facility of the EuropeanCommission, located at Ispra (Italy), is housing the testminefield. The test lane is formed by a strip of ground sep-arated from the surrounding terrain by two concrete wallsof about 50 cm in width and 70 cm in depth. The use ofsteel reinforcement in the walls was avoided to minimizea potential interference with the measurements. The testlane is about 80 m long and 5.7 m wide. A portion of thistest lane (about 55 m long) has been used to realize sevenscenarios, also called (test) plots, for the MsMs project.Six test plots of 6 x 6 m consisting of different soil types(cluttered grassy terrain, loamy soil, sandy soil, clay soil,soil with high content of organic matter, and ferromagneticsoil) are complemented with one reference test plot of 6 x6 m consisting of pure industrial sand. All soil types arebare, except the first one. The growth of any vegetation isprevented by regularly spraying the surface with an anti-vegetative product. The different plots are numbered from1 to 7, and each plot is further subdivided in three subplots,labelled A, B, and C. In each soil type, we have buried

the same 48 test objects (including targets, reference ob-jects, calibration objects and clutter objects) according toone and the same pattern. The positioning of the differenttest objects in each soil type is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Layout of the different test objects in each soiltype.

The list of objects buried in the minefield includes minesimulants of three different dimensions (small, mediumand large) and of two different metal contents (low andhigh), reference targets for position referencing and cali-bration checking, and clutter objects.Three types of reference objects have been used: posi-

tion reference objects, reference objects for radar and mi-crowave radiometers, and reference objects for thermal in-frared sensors and metal detectors. The purpose of the po-sition reference objects is to be easily detectable by all sen-sors, and it is used to help in the alignment and the com-mon referencing of the measured data. The purpose of thetwo other types of reference objects is to be objects whichhave geometrical and physical characteristics fully speci-fied, stable, and easily reproducible. The two types differaccording to the type of sensor they are used for. The threetypes of reference objects are shown in Figure 2, the minesimulants in Figure 3, and the clutter objects in Figure 4.

3. CORE SENSORS IN 2000The list of core sensors which have been collecting data

in the year 2000 includes: pulsed metal detector (MD),µwave radiometer (MR), pulsed ground penetrating radar(GPR), thermal infra-red (TIR) camera, and QuantumWellIntersubband Photodetector (QWIP).

4. AVAILABLE DATASETS FOR FUSIONThe datasets from the measurement campaign in 2000

and available for fusion are listed in Table 1.

Figure 2. Photo of the reference objects. On the left the Po-sitioning Reference Target (PT). In the middle the metallicsphere (RE1) used as reference object for the GPR and theMicrowave Radiometer. On the right the cylinder of sili-cone rubber (RE2) used as a reference object for the IRsensors, including a small metal sphere used as referenceobjects for the Metal Detectors.

Figure 3. Photo of the mine simulants. The suffix A orB corresponds to low or high metal content, respectively.The external appearance of the simulants M1 and M2 isidentical for the A and B types. The simulants M3A andM3B differ also with respect to the shape of the case.

Figure 4. Photo of the different types of clutter objects.CL1: stone, CL2: Section of barbed wire, CL3: Aluminumcan, CL4: Plastic box, CL5: Wooden cylinder, CL6: Bulletcartridge.

Table 1. List of available (YES) datasets acquired duringtheMulti-sensorMine-signatures (MsMs) Campaign in theyear 2000.

Subplot GPR MD MR TIR QWIP1A YES YES YES YES YES1B NO YES NO YES YES1C YES YES NO YES YES2A YES YES NO YES YES2B NO YES NO YES YES2C YES YES NO YES YES3A YES YES YES YES YES3B NO YES NO YES YES3C YES YES NO YES YES4A NO YES NO YES YES4B NO YES NO YES YES4C YES YES NO YES YES5A NO YES NO YES YES5B NO YES NO YES YES5C YES YES NO YES YES6A NO YES NO YES YES6B NO YES NO YES YES6C YES YES NO YES YES7A NO YES NO YES YES7B NO YES NO YES YES7C YES YES NO YES YES

5. DATASETS SCHEDULED IN 2001The list of sensors scheduled to collect data during

the year 2001 includes: continuous wave metal detector,µwave radiometer, pulsed ground penetrating radar,backscattering X-Ray detector, acoustic laser dopplervibrometer, thermal infra-red camera, and Quantum WellIntersubband Photodetector.

6. CONCLUSIONSThe MsMs project provides the research community

with a unique opportunity of obtaining well documentedandwell registered datasets of multiple and calibratedminedetection sensors. The first data sets allowing for the firstdata fusion experiments are being made available now.This process will continue via the web site of the project:http://demining.jrc.it/msms.

7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis project is sponsored by the Joint Research Cen-

tre of The European Union European. The authors wishto thank the different partners which have contributed un-til now to this project, namely: DERA (UK), DLR (GE),FGAN (GE), JRC (EU), ONERA (FR), RMA (BE), andTNO (NL).

REFERENCES1. E. den Breejen, K. Schutte, and F. Cremer. Sensor Fu-sion for Anti-Personnel Landmine Detection, a CaseStudy. In SPIE, editor, Conference on Detection Tech-nologies for Mines andMinelike Targets, volume 3710,pages 1235–1245, Orlando, USA, 1999.

2. P. Gao, S. Tantum, and L. Collins. Single Sensor Pro-cessing and Sensor Fusion of GPR and EMI Data forLandmine Detection. In SPIE, editor, Conference onDetection Technologies for Mines and Minelike Tar-gets, volume 3710, pages 1139–1148, Orlando, USA,1999.

3. A. Gunatilaka and B. Baertlein. Comparison of Pre-Detection and Post-Detection Fusion for Mine Detec-tion. In SPIE, editor, Conference on Detection Tech-nologies for Mines andMinelike Targets, volume 3710,pages 1212–1223, Orlando, USA, 1999.

4. N. Milisavljevic, I. Bloch, and M. Acheroy. Char-acterization of Mine Detection Sensors in Terms ofBelief Functions and Their Fusion. In Third In-ternational Conference on Information Fusion, Paris,France, 2000.

5. B. Nelson, P. Gader, and J. Keller. Fuzzy Set Informa-tion Fusion in Landmine Detection. In SPIE, editor,Conference on Detection Technologies for Mines andMinelike Targets, volume 3710, pages 1168–1177, Or-lando, USA, 1999.


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