Near-Surface Interface Detection for Coal Mining Applications Using Bispectral Features and GPR

The use of ground penetrating radar (GPR) for detecting the presence of near-surface interfaces is a scenario of special interest to the underground coal mining industry. The problem is difficult to solve in practice because the radar echo from the near-surface interface is often dominated by unwanted components such as antenna crosstalk and ringing, ground-bounce effects, clutter, and severe attenuation. These nuisance components are also highly sensitive to subtle variations in ground conditions, rendering the application of standard signal pre-processing techniques such as background subtraction largely ineffective in the unsupervised case. As a solution to this detection problem, we develop a novel pattern recognition-based algorithm which utilizes a neural network to classify features derived from the bispectrum of 1D early time radar data. The binary classifier is used to decide between two key cases, namely whether an interface is within, for example, 5 cm of the surface or not. This go/no-go detection capability is highly valuable for underground coal mining operations, such as longwall mining, where the need to leave a remnant coal section is essential for geological stability. The classifier was trained and tested using real GPR data with ground truth measurements. The real data was acquired from a testbed with coal-clay, coal-shale and shale-clay interfaces, which represents a test mine site. We show that, unlike traditional second order correlation based methods such as matched filtering which can fail even in known conditions, the new method reliably allows the detection of interfaces using GPR to be applied in the near-surface region. In this work, we are not addressing the problem of depth estimation, rather confining ourselves to detecting an interface within a particular depth range

Comparison among Cognitive Radio Architectures for Spectrum Sensing

Recently, the growing success of new wireless applications and services has led to overcrowded licensed bands, inducing the governmental regulatory agencies to consider more flexible strategies to improve the utilization of the radio spectrum. To this end, cognitive radio represents a promising technology since it allows to exploit the unused radio resources. In this context, the spectrum sensing task is one of the most challenging issues faced by a cognitive radio. It consists of an analysis of the radio environment to detect unused resources which can be exploited by cognitive radios. In this paper, three different cognitive radio architectures, namely, stand-alone single antenna, cooperative and multiple antennas, are proposed for spectrum sensing purposes. These architectures implement a relatively fast and reliable signal processing algorithm, based on a feature detection technique and support vector machines, for identifying the transmissions in a given environment. Such architectures are compared in terms of detection and classification performances for two transmission standards, IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.16e. A set of numerical simulations have been carried out in a challenging scenario, and the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed architectures are discussed

A Study of Adobe Wall Moisture Profiles and the Resulting Effects on Matched Illumination Waveforms in Through-The-Wall Radar Applications

In this dissertation, methods utilizing matched illumination theory to optimally design waveforms for enhanced target detection and identification in the context of through-the-wall radar (TWR) are explored. The accuracy of assumptions made in the waveform design process is evaluated through simulation. Additionally, the moisture profile of an adobe wall is investigated, and it is shown that the moisture profile of the wall will introduce significant variations in the matched illumination waveforms and subsequently, affect the resulting ability of the radar system to correctly identify and detect a target behind the wall. Experimental measurements of adobe wall moisture and corresponding dielectric properties confirms the need for accurate moisture profile information when designing radar waveforms which enhance signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) through use of matched illumination waveforms on the wall/target scenario. Furthermore, an evaluation of the ability to produce an optimal, matched illumination waveform for transmission using simple, common radar systems is undertaken and radar performance is evaluated