Radiation and Electromagnetic Induction Data Fusion for Detection of Buried Radioactive Metal Waste

Long, Z., Wei, W., Turlapaty, A.C., Du, Q., Younan, N. H., & Waggoner, C. (2012). Radiation and Electromagnetic Induction Data Fusion for Detection of Buried Radioactive Metal Waste. Proceedings of the 2012 Waste Management Conference. Phoenix, AZ: WM Symposia.

At the United States Army’s test sites, fired penetrators made of Depleted Uranium (DU) have been buried under ground and become hazardous waste. Previously, we developed techniques for detecting buried radioactive targets. We also developed approaches for locating buried paramagnetic metal objects by utilizing the electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensor data. In this paper, we apply data fusion techniques to combine results from both the radiation detection and the EMI detection, so that we can further distinguish among DU penetrators, DU oxide, and non-DU metal debris. We develop a two-step fusion approach for the task, and test it with survey data collected on simulation targets.