A wavelet-based strong clutter removal technique for UWB life detection

Due to the advantages of high range resolution, good penetration through nonmetallic materials, the ground penetrating radar (GPR) with ultra-wideband (UWB) has played an important role in detection and localization of trapped victims in ruins after earthquakes and other catastrophes as well as acts of terrorism. However, the weak vital signal of the survivor can be easily contaminated by the strong clutters reflected from the ground or obstacles surround the victim, so it becomes difficult to extract human signal from the echo. In this paper, a new technique based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is proposed to remove the strong clutters. And experiments are conducted in a simulated ruins with thick obstacles surround the human subject. The results indicate that by using this method, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of detection data is significantly improved, thus the weak vital signal of survivor buried under ruins can be accurately detected.