Research

Abstract

Our research interest is to design and develop the electromagnetic techniques, which can be applied to monitor the environmental changes and to develop the resources and engineering techniques.

For example, even though there are a lot of resources in Siberia, Mongolia and north part of China where are covered with the permafrost, the climate and nature of those areas make them difficult to be found. The pipelines of the natural gas and the melt of permafrost may cause the diffusion of the methane gas and it would make the additional environmental problems.

We have developed the borehole radar techniques and the ground penetrating radar (GPR) techniques to solve these problems, and we additionally have begun to study the new techniques with low frequency electromagnetic field to monitor the subsurface environment.

The remote sensing techniques are necessary to monitor the environment of northeast Asian areas. We propose the new technique to be applied to the environmental survey, which are based on both the remote sensing techniques and the ground penetrating radar techniques.

The CNEAS has built the VSAT system which has the base stations at Tohoku University, Japan and in Nobosibirsk, Russia. We have studied the communication techniques to exchange the academic information between Japan and Russia using VSAT system, and have studied the techniques to build up the data base which can be accessed from both Japan and Russia.

Our research interest is not only the data processing but also designing and developing the instruments for measurements.

We have many international collaboration programs and have done many experiments at the sites in foreign countries, especially in northeast Asian countries.

  • Land Mine Detection
    • We are trying to develop the GPR system for humanitarian demining.
    • We collaborate for this project with JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd., Anritsu Corporation and so on.
    • The field tests were carried out in Afghanistan, Croatia, and Egypt.
  • Spaceborne and Airborne Remote Sensing
    • Operating VSAT system between Tohoku University, Japan and The Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia.
    • Monitoring the wide area environment using SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and microwave remote sensing.
    • Analysis of the data in Sendai area acquired by Pi-SAR, which is operated by NiCT(formerly CRL) and JAXA (formerly NASDA).
  • Subsurface Sensing with Ground Penetrating Radar and Electromagnetic Method
    • Environmental and resources survey with electromagnetic wave.
    • Surveying the permafrost in Siberia, the groundwater in Mongolia and the deposit in China --- They are the collaborating programs and have been undertaken.
  • Polarimetric and Interferometric Borehole Radar
    • We succeeded to design the polarimetric borehole radar first in the world. We can get the polarization information with polarimetric borehole radar.
    • We can use the polarimetric borehole radar system maximum 1000m under the surface in the borehole.
    • We have applied the polarimetric borehole radar system to survey fractures, faults and resources.
    • We surveyed the "Nojima Fault" which was one of the causes of earthquake in Kobe, 1995, with polarimetric borehole radar.
    • We could successfully estimate the archeological stone wall in subsurface at Sendai Castle by our borehole radar.
    • We are developing interferometric borehole radar and carried out some field measurements for this system.

Research themes

  • Subsurface measurement with ground penetrating radar
  • To design the new technique for ground penetrating radar (Hardware, Software)
  • Polarimetric and interferometric borehole radar and its application
  • To develop the induction logging technique for 3D measurement of dielectric constant and magnetic permeability
  • Laboratory measurement technique for microwave electromagnetic properties of rock
  • Microwave remote sensing and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and their application
  • To design the polarimetric and interferometirc radar system
  • VSAT technique
  • To build up the distributed data base for northeast Asian studies
  • To develop demining techniques by GPR

Collaborations

  • To build up the distributed data base using VSAT system
    • The Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences
  • Studies of permafrost measurement with electromagnetic wave
    • The Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences
    • Hokkaido University
    • Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
    • Mongolian Academy of Sciences
  • Environmental and resources survey with electromagnetic wave
    • The Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences
    • China New Star Petroleum Company
    • Chengdu Institute of Science and Technology
  • Imaging of tunnel and cave with electromagnetic wave
    • Korea Advanced Institute of Science and technology (KAIST)
    • Nagasaki University
    • The University of Electro-Communications
  • Development of interferometric and polarimetric borehole radar system
    • Korea Institute of Geology, Mining & Materials (KIGAM)

Fieldwork

  • Foreign Countries
    • Survey of bedrock and groundwater, New Hampshire, U.S.
    • Survey of groundwater, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
    • Survey of permafrost, Yakutsk, Russia
    • Survey of the anomaly of bedrock, Beijing, China
    • Survey of subsurface fractures, Iksan, Korea
  • Domestic
    • Survey of groundwater and subsurface fractures, Kamaishi, Iwate
    • Survey of anisotropy of subsurface, Higashi-Hachimantai, Iwate
    • Archaeological survey, Komochi, Gunma
    • Detection of pipes in subsurface, Osaka Gas Co. Ltd., Osaka
    • Survey of faults, Nojima Fault, Hyogo
    • Survey of the structures of stone walls, Sendai Castle, Miyagi
    • Survey of bedrock structure, Ajigasaki, Yamagata
    • Survey of permafrost, Obihiro, Hokkaido
    • Survey of cave, Yoichi, Hokkaido