Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, As Represented by the Minister of National Defence

Joseph S Seregelyi

Francois J Paquet

Shyam M Khanna

Satish Kashyap

Denis M Bergeron

Rene G Apps

An apparatus to neutralize landmines using high power microwaves has a blast hardened dish antenna mounted on a vehicle along with a microwave generator and power generator A waveguide from the microwave generator feeds microwaves to a feed horn for the antenna. Plugs that are transparent to microwaves are located in the waveguide to prevent the blast wave generated by a detonated landmine from propagating inside of the waveguide and damaging the microwave generator. Flexible sections in the waveguide dampen any shock wave produced by a detonated mine from traveling along the waveguide towards the microwave generator.

Landmine neutralizer using a high power microwave device

A hybrid remote-sensing apparatus is based on an active high-power microwave (HPM) illuminator and a passive infrared (IR) detector for the detection of shallow buried landmines. A 2.45 GHz, 5 kW microwave source is used for illumination and the thermal signature at the soil surface is detected in the 8-12 &mgr;m region both in near real-time as well as after a brief time-delay following illumination. The thermal signature at the soil surface is primarily made up of two components. A thermal signature occurs at the soil surface in near real-time due to the interference of the incident beam and the beam reflected by buried mines. A second thermal signature is generated when temperature contrasts due to differential microwave absorption by a mine and the surrounding soil are conducted upwards from that mine location to the surface. Both signatures are dependent on the complex dielectric constants of mines and the soil. These signatures can be used to determine the location of different types of metallic and non-metallic mine surrogates, dummy mines without explosives and live mines with explosives.

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Stittsville, Canada

Joseph S Seregelyi