Pier Matteo Barone

GPR measurements and FDTD simulations for landmine detection

Among the technologies used to improve landmine detection, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) techniques are being developed and tested jointly by “Sapienza” and “Roma Tre” Universities. Using three-dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulations, the electromagnetic field scattered by five different buried objects has been calculated and the solutions have been compared to the measurements obtained by a GPR system on a (1.3 × 3.5 × 0.5) m3 sandbox, located in the Humanitarian Demining Laboratory at Cisterna di Latina, to assess the reliability of the simulations. A combination of pre-calculated FDTD solutions and GPR scans, may make the detection process more accurate.

Geoscientists at Crime Scenes

Forensic geoscience encompasses many branches of the Earth Sciences whose applications may provide a suitable environmental interpretation of the surroundings, in the context of numerous types of offences, both criminal and civil. A historical overview, the forensic applications of the different branches of geoscience, and the geo-scientific approach to crime scene are treated in this chapter with the purpose to introducing the reader to the main topics of the book.

Development of an efficient numerical set-up to predict the performance of ground-penetrating-radar systems for on-site Earth and planetary applications

The aim of this study is to assess the features of a numerical tool able to predict in an efficient and accurate way the performance of a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) in many typical on-site Earth and planetary applications. Suitable implementation of a computer-aided-design (CAD) package is carried out by accounting for the most critical aspects of the GPR behavior (e.g., antenna elements, signal waveforms, physical characteristics of host media and scatterers). Representative examples of different application scenarios have been developed and tested. Full validation is achieved also by means of appropriate comparisons derived through ad-hoc experimental set-up.

GPR characterization of rocks buried in the Martian subsoil

This work presents theoretical and experimental analyses of GPR investigations for the detection of rocks buried in media simulating the Martian soil, in the framework of the “WISDOM” project of ExoMars mission. An experimental set-up has been built consisting in a box filled with a host material and scatterers, scannable with a GPR bistatic antenna. This set-up has also been implemented and studied through an electromagnetic CAD tool. Excellent agreement has been found between the measured and the simulated results on the scattering features, thus providing reliable information on the detectability of rocks in Martian complex subsurface scenarios.