Theoretical prediction of ground vibrations from heavy military vehicles

The demand for reliable autonomous systems capable to detect and identify heavy military vehicles becomes an issue of paramount importance in the current complicated and delicate political climate. It is expected that such autonomous systems would alleviate some of the burden placed on UN peace keeping forces, who currently must patrol areas systematically to identify and monitor military activity. A promising method of detection and identification that influenced increasing levels of recent investment is the one using the information extracted from ground vibration spectra generated by heavy military vehicles, often termed as their seismic signatures. This paper presents the results of the theoretical investigation of ground vibrations generated by heavy military vehicles, such as tanks and armed personnel carriers. Initially, vehicle models of different degrees of complexity are considered - to identify the resulting dynamic forces applied to the ground. Then the obtained analytical expressions for vehicle dynamic forces are used for calculations of generated ground vibrations (primarily Rayleigh surface waves) using Green’s function method. A comparison of the obtained theoretical results with published experimental data shows their good agreement.