Polarimetric Ultra-Wideband MiMo-Radar for IED-Detection and High-Resolution ImagingAcronym: MEDICI-POLARIs

哥伦比亚数十年的游击战争留下了数千枚地雷的致命遗产。2016年，间歇性地肆虐了50年的血腥内战终于结束，这对哥伦比亚来说可能是一个新的开始。波哥大政府和游击队组织哥伦比亚革命武装力量签署了人们期待已久的和平协议。此前，已有22万多人在国家安全部队、左翼叛军和右翼准军事组织的冲突中丧生。数百万人也被赶出了家园。哥伦比亚现在有机会改善其经济、政治文化和人权，或许还可以恢复其在海外的模糊形象。但对于哥伦比亚人民来说，日常生活仍然被危险所破坏。这个国家仍然布满了与游击队武装冲突产生的地雷。应用项目《Medici-Polaris》是《Medici》的两个后续项目之一，由DFG和Colciencias在2014-2017年间资助。Medici-Polaris的主要目标是研究一种能够提高探地雷达操作的信杂比的方法。为了提高信干比，消除上覆面反射，研究了一种自动将波辐射方向重新排列到最佳入射角度的自适应雷达系统。最佳入射角度，相对于现实的地面，将在电磁模拟和测试测量中进行研究。由于有效土壤介电常数的了解是不可避免的，因此也将研究无接触土壤介电常数的估计方法。为了使优化后的探地雷达概念适用于现场测量，将对一种新的探地雷达系统进行评估，并将建立一个MIMO演示器。两次探地雷达扫描是必要的，这两次扫描使用了新的M序列雷达前端，这也是该项目的一部分。利用多次扫描数据估算土壤介电常数，提高土壤介电系数。由于雷达成像需要相当大的计算能力，因此将建立到主干计算系统的无线数据连接，以保持前端设备的轻量化。此外，还将研究一种创新的介质波导土壤介电常数传感器，它可以为成像提供土壤介电常数的初始值。土壤传感器也将由M序列雷达驱动。由于人道主义排雷行动是哥伦比亚和平进程中的一项重要任务，“光环信托”等政府和非政府组织将通过评估实际地雷污染地区的调查系统来支持这一项目。此外，MEDICI项目的结果将直接纳入雷达讲座，该讲座由在哥伦比亚的德国合作伙伴每年举办，以保证哥伦比亚下一代工程师的可持续教育。

Decades of guerilla warfare in Colombia have left behind a deadly legacy of thousands of landmines. In what could be a new start for Colombia, in 2016 the bloody civil war which raged intermittently for five decades was finally brought to an end. A long hoped-for peace agreement was signed between the government in Bogotá and guerilla group FARC. Prior to this, over 220,000 people were killed in conflicts between state security forces, left-wing rebels, and right-wing paramilitaries. Millions of people were also driven from their homes. Colombia now has the chance to improve its economy, political culture and human rights and perhaps also rehabilitate its murky image abroad. But for the people of Colombia, everyday life is still marred by danger. The country is still peppered with landmines from the armed conflict with the guerilleros. The applied project “MEDICI-POLARIS” is one of two follow-up projects of “MEDICI”, which was funded by DFG and Colciencias between 2014 and 2017. The main objective of MEDICI-POLARIS is to investigate a method, which is able to improve the signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) for GPR operation. In order to increase the SCR, and to eliminate the overlaying surface reflection, an adaptive radar system, which performs an automatic re-arrangement of the wave radiation direction to an optimal incident angle, is investigated. The optimal incident angle, with respect to a realistic ground, will be investigated in EM simulations and test measurements. Since the knowledge of the effective soil permittivity is inevitable, contact free soil permittivity estimation methods will be also investigated. In order to make the optimized GPR concept applicable for field measurements, a new GPR system will be evaluated and a MIMO-demonstrator will be built. Two GPR scans, which are performed with novel M-Sequence radar front ends that are also part of this project, are necessary. The data of multiple scans are used for soil permittivity estimation and improving the SCR. Since considerable calculation power is needed for the radar imaging, a wireless data connection to a backbone computing system will be set up in order to keep the front-end device lightweight. Additionally, an innovative dielectric waveguide soil permittivity sensor will be investigated, which delivers initial soil permittivity values for the imaging. The soil sensor will be also driven by an M-Sequence radar. Since humanitarian demining operations are an important task within the peace process in Colombia, governmental and non-governmental organizations like “HALO-Trust” will support this project by evaluating the investigated systems in actual mine –contaminated areas. Moreover, findings of the MEDICI projects will be directly included in the RADAR lecture, which is hold every year by the German partners in Colombia in order to guarantee a sustainable education of Colombia’s next generation engineers.