• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.171-181
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• 2013

Recently, ground penetrating radar(GPR) has been widely used in detecting metallic and nonmetallic buried landmines and a number of related researches have been reported. A novel preprocessing method is proposed in this paper to flag potential locations of buried mine-like objects from GPR array measurements. GPR operates by measuring the reflection of an electromagnetic pulse from discontinuities in subsurface dielectric properties. As the GPR pulse propagates in the geologic medium, it suffers nonlinear attenuation as the result of absorption and dispersion, besides spherical divergence. In the proposed algorithm, a logarithmic transformed regression model which successfully represents the time-varying signal amplitude of the GPR data is estimated at first. Then, background signals may be densely distributed near the regression model and candidate signals of targets may be far away from the regression model in the time-amplitude space. Based on the observation, GPR signals are decomposed into candidate signals of targets and background signals using residuals computed from the estimated value by regression and the measurement of GPR. Candidate signals which may contain target signals and noise signals need to be refined. Finally, targets are detected through the refinement of candidate signals based on geometric signatures of mine-like objects. Our algorithm is evaluated using real GPR data obtained from indoor controlled environment and the experimental results demonstrate remarkable performance of our mine-like object detection method.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.74-84
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• 2017

Since a soldier manages a hand-held landmine detector by hands, it is necessary to develop a system that can detect the target quickly and accurately. However, the hand-held landmine detector used in Korea has a problem that it can only detect the metal mines. Therefore, it is important to solve the problem and to develop a hand-held landmine detection system suitable for the Korean environment. In this paper, we propose a hand-held landmine detection system suitable for the Korean environment using ground penetrating radar. The proposed system uses depth compensation, matched filtering, and frequency shifting filtering for preprocessing. Then, in the detection step, the system detects the target using the edge ratio. In order to evaluate the proposed system, we buried landmines in sandy loam which is most of the soil in Korea and obtained a set of ground penetrating radar data by using a hand-held landmine detector. By using the obtained data, we carried out some experiments on the size and position of the patch and the shifting frequency to find the optimal parameter values and measured the detection performance using the optimized values. Experimental results show that the proposed preprocessing algorithms are suitable for detecting all landmines at low false alarm rate and the performance of the proposed system is superior to that of previous works.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.23 no.11
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• pp.1307-1314
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• 2012

To reduce the effects of clutters with subsurface inhomogenities in ground-penetrating radar(GPR) images, an eigenimage based signal-processing technique is presented. If the conventional eigenimage filtering technique is applied to B-scan images of a GPR survey, relatively homogeneous clutters such as antenna ringing, direct coupling between transmitting and receiving antennas, and soil-surface reflection, can be removed sufficiently. However, since random clutters of subsurface inhomogenities still remain in the images, target signals are distorted and obscured by the clutters. According to a comparison of the eigenimage filtering results, there is different coherency between subsurface clutters and target signals. To reinforce the pixels with high coherency and reduce the pixels with low coherency, the pixel-by-pixel geometric-mean process after the eigenimage filtering is proposed here. For the validity of the proposed approach, GPR survey for detection of a metal target in a randomly inhomogeneous soil is numerically simulated by using a random media generation technique and the finite-difference time-domain(FDTD) method. And the proposed signal processing is applied to the B-scan data of the GPR survey. We show that the proposed approach provides sufficient enhancement of target signals as well as remarkable reduction of subsurface inhomogeneous clutters in comparison with the conventional eigenimage filtering.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1412-1415
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• 2012

Return signals of a ground penetrating radar(GPR) for mine detection at various frequencies and soil moisture contents are analyzed in this paper. We first compute the dielectric constant, conductivity and attenuation loss based on clay loam which is Korea standard soil. The mine-detection images of GPR at various frequencies are also obtained using the finite-difference time-domain(FDTD) technique. Then, the signal-to-clutter ratio(SCR) and received power of the radar are studied. It is shown that the variable frequency channels are suitable for a GPR to detect landmines at various soil conditions.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.217-231
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• 2017

The subsidence of ground in urban area can be caused by the occurrence of the cavity and the change in ground volumetric water content. The objective of this study is the detection of abnormal area of ground in urban area where the cavity or the change in ground volumetric water content is occurred by the ground penetrating radar signal. GPR survey is carried out on the test bed with a circular buried object. From the GPR survey, the signals filtered by the bandpass filtering are measured, and the methods consisting of gain function, time zero, background removal, deconvolution and display gain are applied to the filtered signals. As a result of application of the signal processing methods, the polarity of signal corresponds with the relation of electrical impedance of the cavity and the ground in test bed. In addition, the relative permittivity calculated by GPR signal is compared with that of predicted by volumetric water content of the test bed. The relative permittivities obtained from two different methods show similar values. Therefore, the abnormal area where the change in ground volumetric water content is occurred can be detected from the results of the GPR survey in case the depth of underground utilities is known. Signal processing methods and estimation of relative permittivity performed in this study may be effectively used to detect the abnormal area of ground in urban area.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.32-39
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• 2009

In this paper, system optimization design technique of an impulse ground penetrating image radar (GPIR) in time domain is proposed to improve depth resolution of the system. For the purpose, time domain analysis method of key components such as impulse generator and UWB antenna is explained and by simulation, parameters of each component are determined. In particular, by standardizing the impulse signal, spectrum efficiency of a radiated impulse signal is improved and a U-shaped planar dipole antenna for a UWB antenna is developed. By equipping a parabolic metal reflector with the proposed antenna, external noise is prevented and the ability of radiating an input impulse into ground is improved. In addition, to remove ringing effect of the propose antenna which causes serious degradation of the system performance, resistors are loaded at the edge of the antenna and then Tx and Rx UWB antennas are optimized by simulation in time domain. For images of targets buried under the ground migration technique is applied and influence of tough ground surface on distortion of received impulse signals is reduced using technique of noise and signal distortion reduction in time domain and its time resolution is enhanced. To verify the design optimization procedure, a prototype of an GPIR and an artificial test field are made. Measurement results show that the resolution of the system designed is as good as that of a theoretical model.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry, and Cartography Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.151-156
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• 2009

Forward modelling of ground penetrating radar (GPR) data is implemented using a new finite element ray tracing technique. The method is different from conventional ray tracing techniques in that the radar cross section of buried targets, the effective area of the receiving antenna, and the attenuation along the raypath are computed. The forward models are used to understand radar signatures measured across various ground structures which are important in detecting engineering hazards at construction sites, void spaces beneath simulated road beds, as well as a learning tool to avoid pitfalls in radargram interpretation. Forward modelling of radar data also can be used in predicting possible structures present at cultural property sites.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.44 no.11
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• pp.42-47
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• 2007

In this paper, influence of lossy ground and gap variation between lossy ground and UWB antenna on impulse propagation in time domain for impulse ground penetrating radar (GPR) is numerically and experimentally investigated. For this study, a novel planar UWB fat dipole antenna is developed. First, influence of lossy ground and gap variation between lossy ground and UWB antenna is simulated. For verification, a test field of sand and wet clay soil is built and using the developed dipole antenna, transmission behavior is investigated at the test field. With an aid of IDFT (inverse discrete Fourier transform), time domain impulse response for transmission coefficient measured and simulated in frequency domain is obtained. Measurement and simulation show that the frequency of maximum transmission coefficient and transmission coefficient are increased with higher dielectric constant and larger gap distance. In time domain, it is shown that for higher dielectric constant, the amplitude of the received signal in time domain is higher and reflected signals are seriously modified. Also, it is found that variation of gap between antenna and ground surface makes timing of peak value changed.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.209-216
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• 2003

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.5-14
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• 2024

Reinforced concrete bridge decks are the first to be damaged by vehicle loads and rain infiltration. Concrete deterioration primarily occurs owing to the corrosion of rebars and other metal components by chlorides used for snow and ice melting. The structural condition and concrete deterioration of the bridge decks within the pavement were evaluated using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey data. To evaluate concrete deterioration in bridges, it is necessary to develop GPR data analysis techniques to accurately identify deteriorated locations and rebar positions. GPR exploration involves the acquisition of reflection and diffraction wave signals due to differences in radar wave propagation velocity in geotechnical media. Therefore, a full-waveform inversion (FWI) method was developed to evaluate the deterioration of reinforced concrete bridge decks by estimating the radar wave propagation velocity in geotechnical media using GPR data. Numerical experiments using a GPR velocity model confirmed the deterioration phenomena of bridge decks, such as concrete delamination and rebar corrosion, verifying the applicability of the developed technology. Moreover, using the synthetic GPR data, FWI facilitates the determination of rebar positions and concrete deterioration locations using inverted velocity images.