Journal
SENSORS
Volume 23, Issue 20, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/s23208522
Keywords
synthetic aperture radar (SAR); ground-penetrating radar (GPR); ground-based SAR (GB-SAR); tomographic SAR (TomoSAR); roadways; artificial defects; bistatic radar; forward scattering; back scattering
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This paper investigates the performance of various radar imaging modes for the inspection and characterization of roadways. It evaluates the ability of each configuration to detect shallow underground defects and estimate geophysical parameters. The results show the potential of forward-scattering tomographic configuration in detecting and characterizing roadways.
This paper investigates the performance of a wide variety of radar imaging modes, such as nadir-looking B-scan, or side-looking synthetic aperture radar tomographic acquisitions, performed in both back- and forward-scattering geometries, for the inspection and characterization of roadways. Nadir-looking B-scan corresponds to a low-complexity mode exploiting the direct return from the response, whereas side-looking configurations allow the utilization of angular and polarimetric diversity in order to analyze advanced features. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the ability of each configuration, independently of aspects related to operational implementation, to discriminate and localize shallow underground defects in the wearing course of roadways, and to estimate key geophysical parameters, such as roughness and dielectric permittivity. Campaign measurements are conducted using short-range radar stepped-frequency continuous-waveform (SFCW) devices operated in the C and X bands, at the pavement fatigue carousel of Universite Gustave Eiffel, over debonded areas with artificial defects. The results indicate the great potential of the newly proposed forward-scattering tomographic configuration for detecting slight defects and characterizing roadways. Case studies, performed in the presence of narrow horizontal heterogeneities which cannot be detected using classical B-scan, show that both the coherent integration along an aperture using the back-projection algorithm, and the exploitation of scattering mechanisms specific to the forward-looking bistatic geometry, allows anomalous echoes to be detected and further characterized, confirming the efficacy of radar imaging techniques in such applications.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available