I am a M.Sc. student at the U of A Mechanical Engineering. My area of research is in signal processing. Specifically, I am investigating the use of a prodder to determine the material properties of objects buried beneath the ground. This technology will be used in the detection of hidden land mines . The theory I'm following is fairly straight forward.
Every object has a certain characteristic sound when struck.
For instance, the sound made by knocking on a block of wood is different from a steel block or a land mine. Thus, when a steel prodder contacts various hidden target objects, the prodder will vibrate with it. An accelerometer mounted on the end of this prodder sends information of the contact back to a computer for analysis and classification. OK, maybe it's not quite as simple as that. So far this looks quite promising.