Improving UXO discrimination using magnetic quadrupole moments

Currently there are no UXO discrimination techniques based on total-field magnetic sensor data that rely on multipole expansion parameters of higher order than the dipole. In some cases, however, it can be advantages to describe a UXO target with both dipole and quadrupole parameters. In this paper, we examine the properties of the quadrupole moment and illustrate them using a synthetic example with an arbitrary shape. We then define a set of diagnostic parameters of the quadrupole moment for practical interpretation of an observed UXO target. Application to a field data set shows the potential of using the quadrupole moment diagnostics as discrimination criteria.