Target-Phase-Focused Feature Synthesis and Extraction for Weakly Scattering Objects in Ground Penetrating Radar

We propose a feature synthesis and extraction method by focusing on target phase for weakly scattering objects. This method is capable of distinguishing weakly scattering landmines from clutter. Landmines left in various regions in the world have been a serious problem, and mine detection for their clearance is an important issue. Along with techniques for detecting buried objects, determining whether a detected object is a landmine or not is also crucial for efficient clearance. Various methods for distinction of landmines have been proposed, but it has been a difficult task. In this paper, we propose a method to extract features of weakly scattering buried objects such as plastic landmines by synthesizing complex-valued scattering information and excluding phase rotation due to propagation.