Remote Sensing Of Land-Based Voids Using Computer Enhanced Infrared Thermography

The detection and description of subsurface land-based voids has become of increasing importance to the military, civil and industrial communities. These voids can represent caves or shelters where military personnel can be hidden. In the civil community, they can represent collapsing infrastructure such as voids surrounding buried utility pipes or voids in concrete structures such as airport taxiways. In the industrial community, these can represent sink holes forming beneath existing and planned structures. Land-based and airborne computer enhanced infrared thermographic techniques have been shown to provide accurate location and description of these hidden voids. These techniques also have the ability to survey large areas quickly and efficiently. This paper reviews our initial paper presented to the International Society of Optical Engineers (SPIE) in October, 1983 and contains an update of our experiences, both successes and failures, of several large-scale void detection projects.