Thin-Pavement Thickness Estimation Using GPR With High-Resolution and Superresolution Methods

Abstract

In the field of civil engineering, sounding the top layer of carriageways, i.e., the pavement layer, is classically performed using standard ground-penetrating radar (GPR), whose resolution is bandwidth dependent. The layer thickness is deduced from both the time delays of backscattered echoes and the known dielectric constant of the medium. This paper focuses on superresolution and high-resolution techniques, which serve to improve the time resolution of GPR signals, and presents a parametric technique and five subspace methods, namely, estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT), multiple-signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm, Min-Norm, and their polynomial versions root-MUSIC and root-Min-Norm. The performance of these algorithms will be compared in terms of resolution power as well as root-mean-square error on the estimated thickness. The paper also presents the results of computer tests and radar measurements in the far field

Estimation of time delay and interface roughness by GPR using modified MUSIC

“…Echo detection provides the time-delay estimation (TDE) associated with each interface, while amplitude estimation allows retrieving the wave speed within each layer. In this paper, we focus on the practical case when the backscattered echoes are overlapped [12,13], which means that the thickness is smaller than the wavelength in the medium. In this case, high resolution and superresolution methods [14][15][16][17] (or subspace methods) can be used to estimate the time delays of echoes and then to measure the small pavement thicknesses (with estimated permittivity).…”

On Recovering Missing Ground Penetrating Radar Traces by Statistical Interpolation Methods

“…Some works explore the possibility of using interpolation to increase the resolution of the acquired GPR signals, a problem that is still under research (e.g., [4]). This improvement could help with the development of techniques that benefit from high data resolution [5]. There have been some attempts to analyze GPR data by performing hyperbola detection, which is robust to missing or anomalous data (e.g., [6]).…”

Time delay estimation of UWB radar signals backscattered from a wall

“…In Ref. 12, the thickness of a thin-pavement layer was estimated using ground penetrating radar with the MUSIC, MinNorm, and ESPRIT method.…”

“…It is therefore inappropriate to apply a subspace method directly to data measured in a UWB channel. In laboratory conditions, wideband frequency domain data can be corrected using VNA calibration procedures [11,12]. In the case of portable shortpulse radar, it is convenient to take into account the specific shape of the radar pulse [13].…”