Soil dust generated by explosions can lead to the absorption and scattering of lasers, resulting in low detection and recognition accuracy for laser-based devices. Field tests to assess laser transmission characteristics in soil explosion dust are dangerous and involve uncontrollable environmental conditions. Instead, we propose using high-speed cameras and an indoor explosion chamber to assess the backscattering echo intensity characteristics of lasers in dust generated by small-scale explosive blasts in soil. We analyzed the influence of the mass of the explosive, depth of burial, and soil moisture content on crater features and temporal and spatial distributions of soil explosion dust. We also measured the backscattering echo intensity of a 905 nm laser at different heights. The results showed that the concentration of soil explosion dust was highest in the first 500 ms. The minimum normalized peak echo voltage ranged from 0.318 to 0.658. The backscattering echo intensity of the laser was found to be strongly correlated with the mean gray value of the monochrome image of soil explosion dust. This study provides experimental data and a theoretical basis for the accurate detection and recognition of lasers in soil explosion dust environments.
Keywords: backscattering echo intensity; laser; mean gray value; soil explosion dust; soil moisture content.