EGU25-9888, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9888
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Advanced GPR Imaging in layered media 
Gregory De Martino5, Ding Yang2, Gianfranco Morelli3, Ilaria Catapano4, Giuseppe Esposito4, Luigi Capozzoli5, and Raffaele Persico1
Gregory De Martino et al.
  • 1Department of Environmental Engineering DIAM, University of Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, CS, 87036, Italy
  • 2School of Resources and Environment, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
  • 3Geostudi Astier s.r.l., 57123,Livorno, Italy
  • 4Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment-National Research Council of Italy IREA-CNR, 80124, Naples, Italy
  • 5Institute for Methodologies for Environmental Analyses-National Research Council of Italy IMAA-CNR, 85050, Tito Scalo, PZ, Italy

The effective use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) in urban environment benefits of the ability to manage data referred to a layered scenario. The GPR imaging in layered media can be improved either making use of focusing algorithms [1-2] accounting in a rigorous way for the layered structure of the soil or, more simply and less demandingly from the point of view of the available computing resources, making use of a joined migration and of a combined time-depth conversion of the data [3-4]. These recently introduced possibilities allow to deal with layered media as homogeneous ones. The inhomogeneity of the investigated medium is, indeed, accounted for through a sort of sticking of different results and with some suitable deformation of the resulting image. Advantages of the combined time-depth conversion but also its intrinsic limits will be discussed. For example, it is helpful for the correct imaging of cavities [5] allowing, in a simple and straightforward way, the mitigation of the well-known compression effect that the cavities suffer in a classical GPR imaging. This claim is supported by both numerical results obtained from data simulated with the gprMax software [6] and by experimental results obtained in real test scenarios.

Key words: Layered media, joined migration, combined time-depth conversion

References

[1] R. Pierri, G. Leone, F. Soldovieri, R. Persico, "Electromagnetic inversion for subsurface applications under the distorted Born approximation" Nuovo Cimento, vol. 24C, N. 2, pp 245-261, March-April 2001.

 

[2] I. Catapano, L. Crocco, R. Persico, M. Pieraccini, F. Soldovieri, “Linear and Nonlinear Microwave Tomography Approaches for Subsurface Prospecting: Validation on Real Data”, IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 5, pp. 49-53, 2006.

 

[3] R. Persico, G. Morelli, G. Esposito, I. Catapano, L. Capozzoli, G. De Martino, D. Yang, An innovative time-depth conversion for the management of buried scenarios with strong discontinuities, Journal of Applied Geophysics vol. 227, 105435, DOI 10.1016/j.jappgeo.2024.105435, 2024.

 

[4] D. Yang, L. Capozzoli, I. Catapano, G. De Martino, G. Esposito, G. Morelli and R. Persico, Accounting for the Different Propagation Velocities for the Focusing and Time–Depth Conversion in a Layered Medium, Applied Sciences 14(24):11812, 2024.

 

[5] R. Persico, S. D'Amico, L. Matera, E. Colica, C. De, Giorgio, A. Alescio, C. Sammut and P. Galea, GPR Investigations at St John's Co‐Cathedral in Valletta. Near Surface Geophysics, vol. 17 n. 3, pp. 213-229. doi:10.1002/nsg.12046, 2019.

 

[6] C. Warren, A. Giannopoulos, I Giannakis, gprMax: Open source software to simulate electromagnetic wave propagation for Ground Penetrating Radar, Computer Physics Communications, 209, 163-170, 2016 10.1016/j.cpc.2016.08.020.

 

How to cite: De Martino, G., Yang, D., Morelli, G., Catapano, I., Esposito, G., Capozzoli, L., and Persico, R.: Advanced GPR Imaging in layered media , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9888, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9888, 2025.