DARPA Background Clutter Collection. Experiment Excavation Results at Firing Point 20

Abstract : Most technologies in use or proposed for use to detect landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) suffer from unacceptably high false-alarm rates, even at modest probabilities of detection. High false-alarm rates are a consequence of the inability to discriminate real UXO and landmines from man-made and naturally occurring clutter. The goal of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-sponsored Background Clutter Data Collection Experiment is to provide data which will support the development of techniques that are more adept at discriminating UXO from benign man-made objects. During the fall of 1996 high areal density site surveys were completed using the following sensor types: magnetometer, infrared, electromagnetic induction, and ground-penetrating radar. Preliminary analysis of the data has confirmed that a large number of anomalies evident in the sensor data are indistinguishable from anomalies that are a result of emplaced inert UXO or landmines. The Firing Point 20 site at Fort A.P. Hill exhibits the largest number of these ordnance-like anomalies. To determine the source of a subset of these sensor response anomalies, a 1-week excavation effort was conducted. The analysis of the data to determine the candidate locations for excavation, the procedures used during the excavation, and the results of the digging are presented.