F. Soldovieri, R. Persico, M.M. Golovko, G.P. Pochanin

Possible strategies to determine a ground permittivity by means of results of subsurface sounding with a GPR are considered in this paper. Main attention is paid to two distinctive in kind strategies. The first strategy is based on the microwave tomographic approach for the inverse scattering problem and the second strategy is based on the Hough transform for image processing. The Hough transform is an effective means for image processing and search for certain elements. Based on the Hough transform strategy is used for the specific problem of permittivity determination. Both of the strategies exploit GPR measurements gathered at air/soil interface over a buried pipe. Both of the strategies are free from subjective estimate of calculated results by a GPR operator. This is a reason why the strategies in principle provide the permittivity very close to real value. The generalized case of the microwave tomographic approach when the conductivity is known non accurate was considered in the paper. It was shown that the maximum modulus of the contrast function criterion fails and that the averaged support of the retrieved contrast criterion does not provide reliable permittivity determination. However a combination of these criteria allows getting an accurate permittivity value under quite good initial approximation. A fast iterative high-speed and accurate method has been developed for the based on the Hough transform strategy. It is meant for the automatic determination of the hyperbolic response location from a subsurface local object and for the automatic determination of the geometric parameters of the hyperbola containing the information about a ground permittivity. The paper contains a qualitative comparison and an analysis of advantages and disadvantages for the considered strategies. An influence of the strategies peculiarities on efficiency of their application in different practical tasks is discussed

1. Binley A., Winship P., Middleton R., Pokar M. West J. High-resolution characterization of vadose zone dynamics using cross-borehole radar. Water Resources Research.2001. V. 37. P. 2639-2652.
2. Daniels J.J., Roberts R. Vendl M. Ground penetrating radar for the detection of liquid contaminants. J. of Applied Geophysics. 1995. V. 33. P. 195-207.
3. Galagedara L.W., Parkin G.W., Redman J.D. An analysis of the ground-penetrating radar direct ground wave method for soil water content measurement. Hydrological Process. 2003. V. 17. P. 3615-3628.
4. Huisman J., Hubbard S., Redman J., Annan A. Measuring soil water content with ground penetrating radar: A review. Vadose Zone J. 2003. V. 2. P. 476-491.
5. Lambot S., Rhebergen J., Van den Bosch I., Slob E., Vanclooster M. Measuring the soil water content profile of a sandy soil with an off-ground monostatic ground penetrating radar. Vadose Zone J.2004. V. 3. P. 1063-1071.
6. Special Issue on Ground Penetrating Radar in Hydrogeophysics. Vadose Zone J. / Eds. Lambot S., Binley A., Slob E., Hubbard S., Feb. 2008.
7. Вопросы подповерхностной радиолокации / под ред. А. Ю. Гринева. М.: Радиотехника. 2005.
8. Daniels D.Ground penetrating radar. 2nd Ed. IEE Press: London. UK. 2004.
9. Владов М.Л., Старовойтов А.В. Георадиолокационные исследования верхней части разреза. М.: МГУ. 1999.
10. О Ен Ден. Определение по георадиолокационным данным диэлектрической проницаемости подповерхностных слоев с учетом закона преломления // Электромагнитные волны и электронные системы. 2005. Т. 10. № 4. С. 16-20.
11. Финкельштейн М. И., Мендельсон В. Л., Кутев В. А. Радиолокация слоистых земных покровов. М.: Сов. радио. 1977.
12. Lopes-Sanches J.M., Fortuni-Guasch J. 3-D radar imaging using range migration technique // IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation. 2000. V. 48. №5. P. 728-737.
13. Persico R., Bernini R., Soldovieri F. The role of the measurement configuration in inverse scattering from buried objects under the Born approximation // IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation. 2005. V. 53. P. 1875-1887.
14. Soldovieri F., Prisco G., Persico R. Application of microwave tomography in hydrogeophysics: some examples. VadoseZoneJ. 2008. V. 7. P. 160-170.
15. Головко М.М., Почанин Г.П. Применение преобразования Хо для автоматического обнаружения объектов на георадиолокационном профиле // Электромагнитные волны и электронные системы. 2004. Т. 9. № 9-10. С. 22-30.
16. Почанин Г.П., Головко М.М. Способ определения скорости распространения электромагнитной волны в грунте. ПатентУкраинынаизобретение № 84188. Бюлл. №18 от 25.09.2008.
17. Leone G., Soldovieri F. Analysis of the distorted Born approximation for subsurface reconstruction: truncation and uncertainties effects // IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing.2003. V. 41. P. 66-74.
18. Bertero M., Boccacci P.Introduction to Inverse Problems in Imaging.Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol and Philadelphia. 1998.
19. Лабунец В.Г., Чернина С.Д. Теория и применение преобразования Хо // Зарубежная радиоэлектроника. 1987. №10. С. 48-56.
20. Kaneko T. Radar image processing for locating underground linear objects // IEICE Trans. 1991. V. E74. P. 3452-3458.
21. Al-Nuaimy W., Huang Y., Nakhkash M., Fang M.T.C., Nguyen V.T., Eriksen A. Automatic detection of buried utilities and solid objects with GPR using neural networks and pattern recognition // J. of Applied Geophysics 2000. V. 43. P. 157-165.
22. Okada M., Kaneko T., Miura K.T. Underground pipe signal extraction using LoG filter from pulse radar images // IEICE Trans. 2000. V. E83-D. V. 1. P. 112-115.
23. Capineri L., Grande P., Temple J.A.G. Advanced image-processing technique for real-time interpretation of ground-penetrating radar images // Int. J. of Imaging Systems and Technology. 1998. V. 9. P. 51-59.
24. Копылов Ю. А., Орленко А. А. Особенности определения координат локальных приповерхностных объектов бистатическим георадаром // Вестн. ХНУ им. В.Н. Каразина. Радиофизика и электроника. 2002. № 544. Вип. 1. С. 206-211.
25. Windsor C., Capineri L., Falorni P., Matucci S., Borgioli G. The estimation of buried pipe diameters using ground penetrating radar // Insight. 2005. V. 47. P. 394-399.
26. Giannopoulos A.GprMax2D V 1.5(Electromagnetic simulator for Ground Probing Radar, the software is available at www.gprmax.org). 2003.
27. Фу К., Гонсалес Р., Ли К. Робототехника. М.: Мир. 1989.
28. Varyanitza-Roshchupkina L. A. Software for image simulation in ground penetrating radar problems // Proceedings of the 3-rd International Conference «Ultrawideband and ultrashort impulse signals». 18-22 September. 2006. Sevastopol, Ukraine. Р. 112-115.