Migration of Ground Penetrating Radar With Antenna Radiation Pattern Correction

Migration can reconstruct the geometric structure of a subsurface object from the ground penetrating radar (GPR) data. However, a GPR antenna is usually simplified as an ideal point/line source of normal migration algorithms, which ignore the influence of the antenna radiation pattern in subsurface soil. In this letter, the back-propagation algorithm is corrected with the analytical half-space far-field radiation pattern of an infinite line source. The superiority of this modified migration algorithm is verified through numerical, laboratory, and field experiments. The results show that the undesired diffractive artifacts at the target edges can be suppressed, while reserving the reflection amplitude in the migrated images with antenna pattern correction, compared with the conventional back-propagation and Kirchhoff algorithms.

Automated summary

In this letter, a modified migration algorithm is proposed for reconstructing the geometric structure of a subsurface object from ground penetrating radar (GPR) data. The algorithm corrects for the influence of the antenna radiation pattern in subsurface soil and has been verified through numerical, laboratory, and field experiments. The results demonstrate the superiority of the modified migration algorithm in suppressing undesired diffractive artifacts while preserving reflection amplitudes in the migrated images.