Comparison of an Analytical and Numerical Solution for the Landmine Detection Problem

Acoustic landmine detection is accomplished using a loud speaker as an airborne source to generate low-frequency waves that enter the soil at a certain incident angle. At a specific frequency, the landmine will vibrate at resonance, imparting a certain velocity on the soil particles above it that is detected by a scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer system. The ability to mathematically predict the soil surface velocity plots created from these experiments would enable the technology to be implemented faster in more challenging environments. An analytical solution1 was determined and has been compared to experimental results. However, the analytical problem demands significant time and computational resources. A problem identical to the analytical solution was implemented with COMSOLTM, and has significantly reduced the computational time and resources necessary to find a solution while remaining accurate to the analytical result. Presented at the 2008 COMSOL Conference Boston held in Boston, MA on 9-11 Oct. Supported in part by ONR.