GPR Data Processing Techniques Surveyed

IRIS-TR-0060
01-11-1999
GROUND PENETRATING RADAR DATA PROCESSING: A SELECTIVE SURVEY OF THE STATE OF THE ART LITERATURE.
Luc van Kempen, Hichem Sahli
IRIS:
A member of: Address:
Information Retrieval and Interpretation Sciences ETRO(Electronics and Information processing) IMEC(Interuniversity Micro Electronics Center) Luc van Kempen, Hichem Sahli VUB(ETRO), Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Tel.: ++32-2-629 2858 Fax.: ++32-2-629 2883 Electronic mail: lmkempen,hsahli@etro.vub.ac.be
Ground Penetrating Radar data processing: a selective survey of the state of the art literature.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Faculty of Applied Sciences ETRO Dept. IRIS Research group Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels - Belgium E-mail: lmkempen,hsahli@etro.vub.ac.be
L. van Kempen, H. Sahli
IRIS-TR-0060
Abstract
The main purpose of this text is to give an overview of the recently published algorithms and methods in the eld of GPR data processing for anti-personnel mine detection. Although some of the papers mentioned do not directly address this topic, the ideas and methods explained in them can be generalized for the application of detecting man made objects in subsurface layers. Two main subsections will be distinguished: The processing of vertical slices called B-scans, and that of horizontal slices called C-scans. Within these subsections, several processing aspects will be addressed, and each time a brief introduction is followed by an overview of the described methods.
Contents
1 General Introduction 2 B-scan Processing
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Source Signal Deconvolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hyperbola estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Soil parameter estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Permittivity and conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.3 Velocity of propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.4 X-T-V data matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.2 Kircho Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.3 Some First Results on GPR Data (Obtained by our own tests). 2.6.4 Application to electro-magnetic waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.5 Phase Shift Migration 12] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.6 FK Migration 12] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.7 Comments and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Tomography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Array Beam Imaging . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3 Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.4 Imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.5 Identi cation . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.6 Averaging and ltering . . . . . 3.4 Polarimetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.4 SAR Polarimetry . . . . . . . . 3.5 Karhunen Loeve transformation . . . . 3.5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 Application and comments . . 3.5.3 First results . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Clutter removal and C-scan reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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4 4 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 10 11 12 12 13 17 17 20 21 21 23 23 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 27 27 29 29 29 29 30 30 31
3 4
3 C-scan processing
23
CONTENTS
3.6.1 3.6.2 3.6.3 3.6.4 Introduction . . . . . Restoration . . . . . . C-scan reduction . . . Comments and results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2 31 31 31 32
Chapter 1
General Introduction
The main purpose of this text is to give an overview of the recently published algorithms and methods in the eld of GPR data processing for anti-personnel mine detection. Although some of the papers mentioned do not directly address this topic, the ideas and methods explained in them can be generalized for the application of detecting man made objects in subsurface layers. Two main subsections will be distinguished: The processing of vertical slices called B-scans, and that of horizontal slices called C-scans. Within these subsections, several processing topics will be addressed, and each time a brief introduction is followed by an overview of the described methods.
Chapter 2
B-scan Processing
2.1 Introduction
When one considers a line of equidistant one dimensional signals called A-scans one gets a two dimensional structure (B-scan) that characterizes the properties of the subsurface as a function of depth. The general purpose of processing these data structures is to extract these subsurface properties. We will start with some preprocessing techniques as ltering and deconvolution. These steps are necessary to enhance the quality of the data, so that the extraction of signal features is easier and more accurate in further steps. Secondly we will discuss a method for extraction of the hyperbolic features in the B-scans. Then some ideas on how to estimate the physical properties of the soil will be proposed. We will end with an overview of migration techniques.
2.2 Filtering
One of the major problems in processing GPR data is the removal of the air ground re ection. In 11] a number of di erent algorithms to do so were compared and evaluated on synthetic data, which consisted of a di raction hyperbola, and a number of background clutter signals. Five algorithms were tested, namely:
Subtraction of the average A-scan. When calculating an average A-scan over the whole B-scan, and subtracting this from each individual A-scan, one only succeeds in eliminating the perfectly horizontal background clutter signals. This is the most classic and widely used way to eliminate the problem of the air-ground re ection, but in many cases it is not very e cient. Application of a horizontal high pass Butterworth lter. The paper shows that this will reduce the di erent background signals e ectively, but will also modify the di raction hyperbola substantially, which reduces the e ciency of this method. FK- ltering. This was not only the most time consuming method, but the results are not even remotely satisfactory. The application of the Discrete Wavelet Transform. This seems to be the most interesting method. The transform was applied in the horizontal direction, and the coe cients of the lowest octaves (which correspond to horizontal energy) were set to zero, after which the inverse transform was applied. The wavelet used in this case was a Daubechies wavelet with 20 coe cients. Nothing is said about the calculation cost of this method, but the rst results seem to be satisfactory. Some additional ne tuning on the choice and the length of the wavelet can be done. Windowed average subtraction. This is an adapted version of the general average subtraction method. Here the average A-scan is not calculated over the whole B-scan, but only over the A-scans within a window around the signal that is treated. This subtraction can adapt to slowly varying signals so that slightly oblique surface re ections can be eliminated.
On the synthetic data that was presented to the ve algorithms, the two latter (wavelet and sliding average) gave the best results in eliminating the various background signals and preserving the di raction 4
CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING
hyperbola. O course the results of applying these methods to real data remains to be seen. The sliding window averaging will only result in good background elimination if the number of A-scans that is present over the width of one di raction hyperbola is large (or in other words if the size of the sliding window can remain small with respect to the hyperbola size). The wavelet ltering has to be investigated further. In 22] some processing is suggested to improve resolution of near surface targets. Although the GPR used for this experiment is of a lower frequency (100 MHZ) and the dimensions of the considered objects are thus larger, the resulting data is quite comparable with that of a higher frequency GPR and smaller objects. First the deeper clutter in the B-scan is considered to be the result of a low frequency component called wow. To reduce this, every A-scan is ltered. A residual mean lter with a 25 point window (residual means that the ltered data is subtracted from the raw data) is compared to a bandpass lter (here 20-500 MHz) and to a residual median lter. The length of this median lter is derived from the spectrum of the signal. If the low frequency component is clearly separable form the higher frequency signal, a reasonable cut o frequency can be chosen. The cut o period is then divided by the sampling interval to get the number of data points. This way each trace is ltered with its own lter length. This last method was shown to reduce the clutter quite e ectively. However the choice of the cut o frequency, which was evident in the shown data is not that self evident in all GPR data. Another problem studied in 22], was the time zero aligning. The method that is proposed to compensate for sloping surfaces or time drifts in the measurement system is to align the A-scans according to the large air-soil interface peak. This was done manually. An automated version can be considered, but is not mentioned in the paper. Another idea presented here is called eigen ltering. This can be used to eliminate the large air ground re ection. The idea is to use the singular value decomposition (SVD) to decompose the image into orthogonal components (Eigenimages), ordered by decreasing coherence. The image can be partially reconstructed omitting, some of these eigen images. Omission of the rst one already eliminates the background re ection, but even better results are obtained when "band-passing" the eigen images (using the second up to the fourth ones). This seems to yield a very good result on the shown data, but the application on other GPR data remains to be studied. Another method applied to lter B-scan images is proposed in 24]. Here the main goal is to reduce the speckle noise that is present in the image. The approach considered is a nonlinear multi-scale one. The multi-scale pyramid decomposition and reconstruction used here, decomposes the image um?1 at scale m ? 1 into a coarser image um by low-pass ltering and down-sampling. The detail image dm is obtained by subtracting an interpolated version of um from um?1. In the reconstruction step the interpolated image is passed through an edge detector. This will give a mask with edge locations that is multiplied with the detail image of the same scale. Finally the sum of this modi ed detail image and the interpolated image will give the reconstructed image to be passed on to the reconstruction step at the next scale. For the low-pass lter a non-separable lter de ned by: 1; j!1 j + j!2 j < Bns Gns (!1 ; !2 ) = : 1=2; j!1 j + j!2 j = Bns 0; otherwise
8 < 8 <
(2.1)
where Bns is xed at 2 =3, is compared with a separable one de ned by: 1; j!j < Bs Gs (!1 ; !2) = G(!1 )G(!2 ); G(!) = : 1=2; j!j = Bs 0; otherwise (2.2)
and the latter one seemed to give better results. For the edge detection the Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) is used, which corresponds to a bandpass lter whose passband is determined by the spatial dispersion G of the underlying Gaussian pulse. After applying this lter the zero crossings of the output are considered edges if the brightness gradient exceeds a threshold T .
The method was applied to a real GPR image with Bs = Bns = 2. The parameter G is chosen equal to 3. The threshold T seems not to be critical. The paper does not mention any values for the lter frequencies, but those have to be adjusted to the used data. The speckle noise reduction is best with the separable lter, but the elimination of the air soil interface is done in the traditional way (average subtraction). The Wiener lter is proposed as a B-scan ltering method in 25]. The Wiener lter is an adaptive digital lter. The fact that it is adaptive means that it will calculate its parameters, according to the data present locally in the image. The theory is based on the principle of mean squares estimation and is summarized as follows: The posed problem can be written as:
y(n) = s(n) + v(n) (2.3) with y(n) a signal composed by an original signal s(n) and a noise signal v(n) (all values are zero for n < 0). Out of this signal we will try to calculate an estimation of s(k) called s ^(n). This will be written in the
form:
s ^(n) =
where h(k) is independent of n. Our problem is now to nd the values of h(k). These values will be calculated while minimizing the approximation error:
h(k)y(n ? k)
(2.4)
J = E e2 (n)] = E (s(n) ? s ^(n))2 ] = E (s(n) ?

Minimization will lead to:
h(k)y(n ? k))2 ]
(2.5)
Since it goes that:
@J = E 2(s(n) ? X h(k)y(n ? k)) de(n) ] @h(i) dh(i) k de(n) = ?y(n ? i) dh(i) E (s(n) ?
X
(2.6)
(2.7) (2.8) (2.9)
This can be rewritten as:
h(k)y(n ? k))y(n ? i)] = 0

X
Rsy (i) =
We see that the values for the lter parameters are dependent on the autocorrelation function of the signal Ryy and the cross correlation function Rsy between the signal and the original. Solving this equation for h(k) can be done by taking the transform of the equation: Ssy (z ) (2.10) H (z ) = S yy (z ) On the basis of the data one can calculate the signal spectrum Syy , and estimate the noise spectrum Svv . If we also assume that the noise and the original signal are not correlated we can write that: so the lter parameters can be calculated.
h(k)Ryy (i ? k)
Ssy = Sss = Syy ? Svv
(2.11)
The ltering of the data was done in a matlab environment, which lters the B-scans in blocks. The best values for the parameters (block size for ltering and noise estimation) were chosen according to the empirical SNR de ned as: The results were surprisingly good (compared to other methods) since the background and measurement noise were almost completely attenuated, without distorting the signal itself. An example of the lter results by the Wiener lter can be found in gure 2.1
average energy in object signals ? 1 SNR = average energy in background signals
(2.12)
Figure 2.1: The results of the application of the optimized Wiener lter to a B-scan. Bottom: A detailed view of one of the A-scans, before and after ltering, top: The B-scan before and after ltering.
2.3 Source Signal Deconvolution

In order to increase the resolution of the GPR source signature, deconvolution in GPR data was applied in 10]. The deconvolution was performed using complex spectral division. The recorded signal r(t) can be represented as a convolution of the source signal s(t), the response function of the ground g(t) and the response of the receiver h(t): r(t) = s(t) g(t) h(t). Fourier transforming to the frequency domain gives: R(f ) = S (f )G(f )H (f ). The main aim of deconvolution is to remove the e ect of the source waveform from the recorded data: R0 (f ) = R(f )=S (f ) = G(f )H (f ). Due to the band limited nature of the emitted wave and the e ect of noise, deconvolution is an ill posed operation. To regularise this, a white noise is added, middled by a so called water lever parameter . The new equation will become:
R0 (f ) = R(f )S (f )=(S (f )S (f ) + ) (2.13) where S (f ) is the complex conjugate of S (f ). The value of was set to 1% of the maximum source signal power. Inverse Fourier transforming the function R0 (f ) will result in the deconvolved function
r0 (t), which (if the receiver response is assumed a constant) is equal to the ground response g(t), which
was searched for. One of the major problems in applying this method is the knowledge of the exact source signal. In this article this is experimentally estimated in two ways: rst by measuring and averaging the direct wave between the source and the receiver, when both are coupled to the ground, and second by lifting both into the air and measuring the transmitted signal in that case. The second method gives no useful results because the e ects of coupling to the ground on the emitted wave are not accounted for. The rst method results in a useful wave, which used in the deconvolution is able to improve interpretation of the data (in this case only geologic structures were investigated). When looking at the power spectrum of this source signal, however, the peak energy occurs at a frequency that is 30% lower than the nominal frequency of the antenna. The main conclusions of this article are that source signal deconvolution can be useful in interpreting the data, but that an accurate way to measure the source signal still has to be found.
2.4 Hyperbola estimation

2.4.1 Introduction
When scanning over a re ective object with a Ground Penetrating Radar, the B-scan will show a hyperbolic structure in the re ection. This hyperbola contains information about the re ective object itself (to be used as features in a pattern recognition program), the position of the object (can be used in C-scan processing and aligning operations) and the soil structure (the velocity of propagation in the soil can be calculated from such a hyperbola as shown in the next section). However, to be able to use the hyperbola features for all these applications, the rst step has to be the extraction of the hyperbola from the B-scan image.
2.4.2 Theory
In 23] a method for determining linear structures (as the air soil interface) and hyperbolas is introduced. It is based on a modi ed version of the Hough transform. A brief overview of the theory is given. Any point (Xi ; Yi ) lying on a line satis es = Xi cos + Yi sin where and are the polar coordinates of the line. These polar coordinates are then discretized. For each bright pixel (Xi ; Yi ) in the image all allowed values of are scanned and each time the corresponding is calculated. This will result in a sinusoidal curve in the Hough space ( , space) and these curves will intersect for all points on the same line. The coordinates of the intersection will give the detected line. Each occurrence of , is counted, and the high spots in the distribution will de ne the detected lines. So, both for the selection of the bright pixels, as for the selection of detected line, a threshold has to be applied.
Standard HT for straight lines
HT for hyperbolas
If D is the depth of the scattering object, Sc its horizontal position, and S the horizontal position of the antenna, the Time Of Flight (TOF) of the wave is: (2.14) with v the velocity of propagation of the electromagnetic waves in the medium. Since both axes are displayed with discrete values one can write: TOF = j T , S = i x and Sc = ic x ( T; x are the horizontal and vertical scanning steps). This discretisation will lead to the following parametric equation of the hyperbola: with the three parameters , and given by:
TOF = 2(D2 + (S ? Sc )2 )1=2 =v
j 2 = + (i ? )2
(2.15)
= 4D2= T 2v2 (2.16) = 4 x2 = T 2 v 2 (2.17) = ic (2.18) By picking three distinct bright points in the image PL = (iL; jL ); PM = (iM ; jM ); PN = (iN ; jN )] one can obtain the values for , and :
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 )] = (i2 N ? iL )(jM ? jN ) ? (iM ? iN )(jN ? jL )]=2 (iN ? iL )(jM ? jN ) ? (iM ? iN )(jN ? jL(2.19) 2 2 = (jM ? jN )= (iM ? iN )(iM + iN ? 2 )] (2.20) 2 = jL ? (iL ? )2 (2.21)
NOTE that in the formula in the article an error was discovered: the factor two in the denominator of was placed in the wrong position. The corrected formula is shown here. The accumulation of votes of the triplets , , , corresponding to possible hyperbolic arcs occurs in a 3D array while scanning over the bright pixels of an image. The high spots in the accumulator space ( , , ) provide the parameters that identify the most likely hyperbolic arcs. This is a very calculation intensive method. Therefore the Randomized Hough Transform (RHT) is proposed. This accumulates votes only to curves passing through triplets of points selected at random. This is repeated a xed number of times (500 to 6000). If we automatically discard triplets that generate hyperbolas with upward pointing tails, (which have no physical meaning) the number of calculations is further reduced.
2.4.3 Results
The results shown in the paper 23] are on synthetic data, and one real image (a DeTeC image). The results seem very good, the hyperbolas are well detected. The method remains to be tested on other images, and also remains to be seen what happens if the average subtraction is not applied.
2.5.1 Introduction
2.5 Soil parameter estimation
In many processing algorithms based on GPR data such as migration (see 2.6) or tomography (see 3.2), the knowledge of the physical properties of the local soil is needed. The most important of these properties is the velocity with which the signal will propagate in the material. This will highly in uence the shape of the di raction hyperbola in the B-scans and thus also any use of this hyperbola thereafter. Since this velocity (v) is dependent on two other properties (permittivity ( r ) and conductivity ( )), an estimation of these parameters can also be useful. Since the knowledge of these properties can improve the use of GPR for mine detection both in the acquisition stage (use of the appropriate acquisition parameters) as well as in the processing stage, some articles focus on obtaining an accurate estimate of these parameters, based on antenna characteristics and simple local tests. In 1], the local permittivity and conductivity of the soil are being estimated. The rst step is to produce the antenna monograph. This is a two dimensional graph in the conductivity - permittivity plane, that will show the resonant frequency and resonant resistance curves. The monograph is calculated once for each antenna in lab conditions. The procedure that is followed is called the Spectral Domain Moment Method, and results in solving following matrix equation: E ] = G] I ], where E ] is the electric eld applied to the antenna, G] is computed by a complex integration of Green's function with antenna geometry, and I ] is the unknown current density. When E ] is applied as a testing function (driven by the voltage V ), and G] is calculated through the correct formula's, this equation can result in I ]. The input impedance can then be found by dividing the applied voltage with the current (calculated from the current density).
2.5.2 Permittivity and conductivity
10
To obtain the monograph, the voltage V (and thus the test function E ]) is chosen and the matrix G] is calculated for di erent values of permittivity and conductivity. For each of these values the matrix equation is solved, and so the corresponding resonant impedance is calculated. The resonant frequency is that frequency for which the reactance part of the impedance becomes zero, and the resonant resistance is the resistance at that frequency. When on the speci c location the resonant frequency is measured (measuring the impedance at di erent frequencies, and selecting the frequency with zero reactance) and the corresponding resonant resistance is determined, it will be su cient to search for the intersection of the corresponding curves in the monograph, who's coordinates will give the local permittivity and conductivity. In practice this method leaves the problem of measuring the antenna's monogram, as well as the in situ measuring of the resonant frequency and impedance. These are things that remain quite di cult to be done in practice. A number of simpler, more easy to use methods to estimate the velocity of propagation v in the medium are presented in 2]. Locating objects of known depth. If the depth zknown of a reference object is known, and the two way travel time tpick is measured up to an error terr (tpick = tacc terr ) out of one of the A-scans, then: 2zknown 2zknown v (2.22) tpick + terr tpick ? terr This will give an upper and lower boundary for the estimated velocity. The travel times can be estimated out of the number of samples in the one dimensional signal between the signal emission and the rst re ection peak, and the known sample frequency with which the signal was acquired. Geometric scaling. If a reference object is used that re ects in all directions, and that is positioned at a known horizontal location (XY coordinates known), but at an unknown depth (Z coordinate unknown), the scanning movement will lead to a di raction hyperbola. The length of the wavepath w will be w2 = 4(x2 + z 2 ), where x, the horizontal distance between the object and the antenna, is known and z , the depth of the object, is unknown. The expression for the two way travel time t(x) (which yields the hyperbola) is: 4x2 + 4z 2 = 4x2 + t2 t(x) = w = v v2 v2 v2 0
r r
2.5.3 Velocity of propagation
(2.23)
Where t0 is the vertical two way travel time. If we can extrapolate the hyperbola out of the B-scan image, we know for every x, the time t(x). This formula will then easily su ce to estimate the propagation velocity v. The problem of estimating the di raction hyperbola out of the measured data was not at all addressed in this paper, but it can be possible to do so using the Hough transform as described in 2.4. CDP recording. Here one will vary the o set x between the emitter and receiver antenna and use a plane re ector at unknown depth. The wavepath between emitter and receiver can in this case be expressed as w2 = x2 + 4z 2, where x is the horizontal distance between the emitter and the receiver (this is twice the x of the previous method), and z the depth of the re ector. The formula of the two way travel time t versus the o set x can then be given as:
This equation is quite similar to the one in the previous section. Again the velocity v can be estimated from at least two A-scans (if more scans are used the accuracy of the estimation will improve). In practice the placement of a large plane re ector can cause di culties. This is not discussed in the paper.
x2 + 4z 2 = t(x) = w v v2 v2
(2.24)
11
Use of standard velocities. If the relative dielectric permittivity r of the survey area is known (see c , where c is the standard speed of light in vacuum. 2.5.2), v can be approximated by v = p If, however the conductivity of the local soil is also known a more correct formula for the local velocity can be used:
v=p
s p
r r
2 1 + ( =! 0 r )2 + 1
(2.25)
where 0 = 8:8854x10?12As=V m, the magnetic permeability (usually chosen 1), the conductivity (S/m), and ! the frequency. The knowledge of the parameters permittivity and conductivity becomes thus the new problem. 1] tried to estimate them locally, but if the main goal is to know the local propagation velocity, one of the three previous methods would be much more interesting. If the local properties of the soil are known (by lab tests or by general knowledge) these formulas can be useful.
2.5.4 X-T-V data matrix
The method presented in 18] uses migration techniques to estimate the propagation velocity as a function of depth. The main idea of this method is to use the fact that migration, performed with the correct propagation velocity v will concentrate the energy present in the di raction hyperbola in its apex. If this process is then repeated for a number of possible velocities, the velocity which gives the best results can be selected. A B-scan is considered as a two dimensional x ? t radar re ection, with x the horizontal position, and t the one way re ection. This image is then processed by migration in the wavenumber-frequency domain (FK migration, see 2.6) for various propagation velocities v. This will result in a three dimensional data structure: the x ? t ? v data matrix. This will thus be a three dimensional intensity structure called I (x; t; v). The re ected intensity will show a sharp peak in the v direction at the position of the hyperbolic apex of the re ection. In addition, the velocity v at which this intensity peak occurs coincides with the propagation velocity between the ground surface and the depth of the hyperbolic apex. In practice for each value of space xi and time tj , the following values are calculated: average intensity: 1 ave(xi ; tj ) = n
n X k=1
I (xi ; tj ; vk )
(2.26)
k range from 1 to n).
This is the intensity for each position (x; t) after averaging over all the velocities v. (Here i; j and
peak intensity (For one position (x; t) the maximum intensity over the v direction in absolute value.)
p(xi ; tj ) =
peak value:
max1 k n I (xi ; tj ; vk ) ave(xi ; tj ) 0 ? min1 k n I (xi ; tj ; vk ) ave(xi ; tj ) < 0
(2.27)
pv(xi ; tj ) =
p(xi ; tj ) ? maxfave(xi ; tj ); I (xi ; tj ; v1 ); I (xi ; tj ; vn )g ave(xi ; tj ) 0 p(xi ; tj ) + maxfave(xi ; tj ); I (xi ; tj ; v1 ); I (xi ; tj ; vn )g ave(xi ; tj ) < 0
(2.28)
This expresses how much this peak intensity di ers from the average intensity at that particular point. The reason for adding the rst and last intensity values in the next formula is not explained in the article. A personal interpretation of their presence is given in this paragraph. The peak intensity will be used to detect possible apexes. If a point (xi ; tj ) represents an apex the curve in function of v should theoretically rise from the rst velocity v1 where the hyperbola is under migrated, to a maximum at vp where the hyperbola is correctly migrated, and then fall back to the last velocity
12
vn where the hyperbola is over migrated. If now the curve will rise at one of the extrema in v, so
that that value will be higher than the average, this will indicate that that particular point does not completely correspond to the model of a hyperbola apex. So including those values in the formula will eliminate those points. A particular example of such a point is the point at one end of the under migrated hyperbola. At the rst extremum in v the energy at that point will be large. As the migration continues this energy will drop steadily to the other extremum. This way we have a curve with a large peak intensity, but since it does not represent an apex, the peak value should be small. This is achieved by introducing the extremum values in the formula.
If a certain point represents a hyperbola apex the peak intensity will be maximum at that velocity (vp ) where the energy of the complete hyperbola is concentrated in the apex (xs ; ts ). Here the di erence between the peak intensity and the average will be large. Therefore the points (xi ; tj ) at which the peak value pv(xi ; tj ) is larger than threshold T1 are extracted and interconnected regions are obtained. Within each region the points with maximal peak intensity p(xs ; ts ) are selected as possible hyperbola apexes. To eliminate erroneous candidate apexes one uses the fact that in the well migrated image the hyperbola is focused at its apex. Thus for all the possible apexes (xs ; ts ) the following binary image is created: 1 jI (xi ; tj ; vk )jvk =vp (xs;ts ) j p(xs ; ts ) ? T1 (2.29) 0 jI (xi ; tj ; vk )jvk =vp (xs;ts ) j < p(xs ; ts ) ? T1 In this binary image the regions around the candidate apex points are selected where the local intensity is larger than the candidates peak intensity minus the threshold T1 . If these areas are too large the candidate has to be rejected. So rst the candidate area value will be normalized by dividing it by the peak value pv(xs ; ts ), and comparing this result with a second threshold T2 . Those values smaller than this threshold are then considered as real hyperbola apexes. In summary this method allows to simultaneously detect the hyperbolas, extract their apex position and to estimate the propagation velocity. If this is done for hyperbolas at di erent depths the result will be a propagation velocity distribution as a function of depth (or time). One drawback of the method is the calculation complexity, which is quite large. Finally extracting the intensities along the estimated v(t) curve out of the x ? t ? v data matrix will result in the reconstructed image. Results: the method was applied to a B-scan taken with a GPR at 400 MHz, over an area with a large number of pipes at several depths and constructed of several materials. The method results were compared to those of standard migration and were found to be much better. The method was applied to an image if pipes at di erent depths and of di erent sizes. In the resulting image all pipes can be seen and their horizontal position as well as their depth can be determined. At the same time a curve propagation velocity vs propagation depth was constructed.
Ibinary (xi ; tj ; vk )jvk =vp (xs;ts ) =
2.6 Migration
2.6.1 Introduction
Migration is an image processing technique that until now has mainly been developed in the eld of seismic data processing. There the purpose is to reconstruct, on the basis of re ection data, acquired at the surface, the whole re ecting structure that is present in the sub-surface, and is causing said re ection data. The main aim of migration techniques (both in time- and frequency-domain) is to give an idea of the exact physical position and shape of the re ectors in the subsurface. The ideal migration will be an accurate transformation from the position-time domain to the position-depth domain. In doing so, much emphasis is laid on the reconstruction of plane re ectors with a certain dip (inclination downward). This is indeed very important in the seismic point of view, since these re ectors are of main interest. What we will attempt is to apply these methods (after adaptation) to data coming from GPR sensors. Here the type of re ectors that are of main interest are the point scatterers. The idea of using these methods originates in a certain observed similitude in the non-migrated data. Indeed, a point scatterer will cause the presence of a hyperbolic structure in the image. This is due to the width of the emitted beam "antenna footprint". This will cause the antenna to receive re ections of point scatterers that are not directly below it. Since this re ection is not perpendicular to the antenna surface, the time that the
13
Figure 2.2: The problem: the re ected energy of the object is spread out over the di erent receiver positions leading to the measurement hyperbola. The idea of migration is to recombine this energy in one position. beam will need to travel to the object and back will be larger than when the antenna is directly above the object. This is why in the X-time diagram the hyperbolic structure appears, with the apex at the position of the object. The e ect of point scatterers in the seismic approach is also the presence of a hyperbola, but here the underlying physical principle is very di erent. Indeed, in this case the emitted beam is not widening, but will remain quite narrow. When this beam reaches a point scatterer, it will be di racted in a wide area. So in this case the beam widening does not appear in the emitted beam, but in the re ected one. Note that to be able to record this type of data one has to have one emitter in a xed position, and a scanning receiver. So although the e ect on the resulting data seems quite similar, the underlying physical principles are di erent. The next sections will introduce some of the existing approaches to this problem, each with their particular properties. First a number of techniques, developed for seismic processing are summarized, then a possible cross-over to electro-magnetic migration is mentioned, and the paragraph will be ended with some discussion. All this is based on 12], 13], 14], 15] and 16]. This type of migration is based on the di raction summation principle. The basic idea is to try to calculate the wavefront at a certain time and position, when it is known at another time and position. The known data is recorded at all times, at depth z = 0, and what we want to calculate is the originating wavefronts at time t = 0 at all depths z . We have to emphasize that in migration the moment of re ection is considered time t = 0 and that the position of re ection is regarded as the source. The movement of the wave towards the re ector is not at all considered, and also multiple re ections are excluded. In order to mathematically comprehend this type of migration we need to introduce some concepts. (At some points in the text the terminology is borrowed from seismic and vibration methods)
2.6.2 Kircho Migration
14
Point Source
The pressure eld due to an impulsive point source that erupts at t0 and is located at r0 in an homogeneous velocity medium is given by Green's function: 0 0 (2.30) G(r; tjr0 ; t0 ) = (t ? t ? jr ? r j=c) where c is the velocity of propagation. Here the primed (unprimed) variables indicate the source (receiver) variables. The source is the re ector in the subsurface, and the receiver is the probe scanning the surface. Equation 2.30 describes an expanding sphere in x-t space. If the source explodes at t0 = 0 and r0 = (0; 0; 0), then the sphere expands from the origin with speed c, while the amplitude is attenuated by the geometrical spreading factor jr ? r0 j. An imploding point source point sink is one where the spherical wavefront collapses to the source point as time increases; The eld due to an imploding source is represented by the backwards Green's function: 0 0 (2.31) G(r; tjr0 ; t0 ) = (t ? t + jr ? r j=c)
jr ? r0 j
jr ? r0 j
For forward propagating wavefronts, Huygens' principle states: Each point on a wavefront at time t can be thought of as a secondary point source. The future wavefront at t+dt can be reconstructed by taking the envelope of exploding wavefronts at t + dt originating from the secondary point sources. For backward propagating wavefronts, a corollary to Huygens' principle can be stated: Each point on a wavefront at time t can be thought of as a secondary point sink. The past wavefront at t ? dt, that is an earlier wavefront, can be reconstructed by taking the envelope at t ? dt of imploding wavefronts that collapse to the secondary sinks. In migration, we try to use data at the surface to reconstruct the past history of wave- elds in the subsurface. Therefore we will be using the backwards Green's function to continue the measured elds at the surface in the downward direction towards the subsurface scatter sources. The problem with Huygen's Principle is that it predicts two secondary wavefronts, one inward propagating and the other outward propagating. This contradicts reality where, in a homogeneous medium, a one way propagating wave will not produce backward propagating wavefronts. If not, then we would be constantly bombarded by echoes of our conversations with others. To cure this problem, Kircho in the 1800's suggested that the outward propagating secondary wavefront could be correctly predicted from the primary wavefront by taking the envelope of a distribution of secondary monopole and dipole wavefronts. In this way it can be shown that the inward propagating wavefront disappears. Formally, Kirchho 's equation derived from Green's Theorem says that the eld P (x; z; t) can be predicted by a surface and volume integration over the wavefront:
Huygens Principle
Kircho Migration Theory
P (r; t) =
XX
dG(r; tjr0 ; t0 ) P (r0 ; t0 )dS 0 dt0 dn0 S t XX + G(r; tjr0 ; t0 )F (r0 ; t0 )dV 0 dt0
XX
0 0
(r ; t ) dS 0 dt0 G(r; tjr0 ; t0 ) dP dn 0
0 0
where n0 is the normal vector on the surface S 0 , and is pointing in the direction of the wave propagation; G is the causal Green's function described earlier; and the interior volume integral contains the body forces represented by F (x; z; t) (see Morse and Feshbach Volume I for the derivation in the time domain).
(2.32)
15
Here the rst term represents the surface monopole sources, the second term the surface dipole sources, and the third the volume sources. The coordinate system for the above equation can be seen in gure 2.3.
Figure 2.3: The coordinate system of the theory. To migrate data we have to nd a downward continuation of the recorded data into the earth. This means that we will now look at the point on the surface as the source (exploding re ector) of the inverse propagating wave eld. We assume that the exploding re ector is just outside the volume of integration. In that case the volume integral term in the equation becomes zero. Since we wish to reconstruct ancient wave elds from current data we use the backwards Green's functions. The practical form of the downward continuation operator can be derived in the following way: 1. Homogeneous subsurface velocity is assumed, although for variable velocity a high frequency Green's function can be used. 2. Assume that the semi-sphere of integration goes to in nity so that there are no contributions from the semi-sphere for nite evaluation times. Also, the initial condition terms in this equation are assumed to be zero. 3. For a planar surface, the image Green's function
G0 = G(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; z 0 ; t0 ) ? G(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; ?z 0; t0 )

can be inserted into the equation to eliminate the rst surface integral term because
(2.33) (2.34) (2.35)
G0 (x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; z 0 = 0; t0 ) = 0
and
dG0 (x; y; z; tj; x0 ; y0 ; z 0 = 0; t0 ) = 2 dG(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; z 0 = 0; t0 ) dz 0 dz 0

0
16
dG term in equation 2.32 becomes: 4. Since we assume a plane horizontal surface, dn0 = dz 0 and the dn
means that the backward propagation model will be accurate at deeper levels where this is true. The remaining term can be evaluated with the identity:
dG = dG = 1 d (t ? t0 + jr ? r0 j=c) + O( 1 ) (2.36) dn0 dz 0 jr ? r0 j dz 0 jr ? r0 j2 The second order term inverse in jr ? r0 j can be neglected because jr ? r0 j is large. This assumption d (t ? t0 + jr ? r0 j=c) = ?1 d (t ? t0 + jr ? r0 j=c) djr ? r0 j dz 0 c dt0 dz 0 ?r j z where djr dz = jr?r j = cos( ).
0 0 0 0
(2.37)
Using this result to evaluate the dipole term in equation 2.32 gives:
XX
X X d (t ? t0 + jr ? r0 j=c) () P (r; t) dG P (x0 ; y0; z 0 ; t0 ) ccos = ? dn dt0 jr ? r0 j
_ (x0 ; y0 ; z 0; jr ? r0 j=c + t) cos( 0) P jr ? r jc
(2.38)
Equation 2.38 is the downward continuation operator for data recorded on a plane. The Kircho migration is obtained by evaluating the continued eld in equation 2.38 at t = 0: 0 X _ (x0 ; y0 ; z 0 ; jr ? r j ) cos( 0) M (x; y; z ) = P (2.39) c jr ? r jc which is evaluated using the MATLAB program below.
S
0
% % KIRCHOFF MIGRATION PROGRAM % % nx = number of traces at z=0 along at recording plane % DP(x,z=0,t) = time derivative of pressure eld trace at (x,0). % c = 1/2 the actual velocity %(dt,dx,dz) = sample intervals in time, o set and depth. % for x = 1:nx for z = 2:nz xx = x*dx; zz=z*dz; for itrace = 1:nx r2 = ( (xx-dx*itrace)^2 + zz^2 ); t = sqrt(r2)/(c*dt); costheta = z/r2; M(x,z) = DP(itrace,0,t)*costheta + M(x,z); end end end M = M/c;
Migration tricks to improve quality of migrated images
Here are some tricks, but there are undoubtedly other tricks that are as or more e ective than these.
17
1. Data tapering. Edges of your data set should be padded (for several wavelengths at least) with traces identical to the edge traces, and these padded traces should be gradually tapered to zero amplitude. Tapering decreases ringing in your migrated image at the expense of some resolution loss. This idea is similar to apodization (gradual darkening of lens edge) of telescopic lenses, which suppresses optical di ractions from the edges of the lens. 2. Post-migration ltering. The migration process can introduce high frequency noise into the image. Such noise can be eliminated by low-pass ltering, where the low-pass frequencies are consistent with the bandpass range of signal. 3. While migrating subsequent B-scans, the model can be improved by iteratively changing the velocity model with each new migration image.
2.6.3 Some First Results on GPR Data (Obtained by our own tests).
The suggested algorithm in the previous paragraph was implemented and slightly altered (in its present form it does not work). The parameters were estimated on the basis of the information present on the website of the DeTeC group of the EPFL, where the used data originated. An example of these preliminary results can be found in the next gure.
1
50 8000
50
100
6000
100 0.5
150
4000
150
200 2000 250 0 300 2000 350 4000 400 6000
200 0 250
300 0.5 350
400 1 450
450
500 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
8000
500 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
(a)
(b)
Figure 2.4: An example of some preliminary migration results : (a) Before migration ; (b) After migration In the gure one clearly sees that the hyperbolas present in the original image have much more converged towards their apex after migration. One can also see that the dimensions of the main re ection after migration are closer to the real dimensions of the object. So these simple tests show that further study of a migration algorithm, based on the electro-magnetic variant of Kircho migration seems certainly warranted.
2.6.4 Application to electro-magnetic waves

~ @H @t = 0 ~ @E n @t = 0
Also an extrapolation of the theory towards electro-magnetic waves was made ( 16]). For electromagnetic ~ and electric eld E ~ must satisfy the di usion equation. wave propagation, the magnetic eld H
~? 4H ~? 4E
(2.40) (2.41)
Let P (~ r; t) be any scalar component of an observed Electromagnetic Field. The migrated eld P M (~ r; t), calculated out of such a scalar component P 0 (~ r; t) will have to satisfy following boundary conditions:

P M (~ r; )jz=0 = P 0 (~ r; T ? )jz=0
0
n @P M (~ r; ) = 0 @t
18
for 0 T for < 0 ; > T for z > 0 for j~ rj ! 1; z > 0

(2.42)
4P M (~ r; ) ?
P M (~ r; ) ! 0
These three equations describe a boundary value problem, which can be solved using Green's theorem and Green's functions for the di usion equation. Before going deeper into the solution of the problem, let us rst de ne a few notations:
~ r : Cartesian coordinates of the observer (in two dimensions: ~ r = (x; z ). An example of a real life
observer is the receiver, i.e. the scanning device on the surface. t : Real time of the receiver. ~ r0 : Cartesian coordinates of source (in two dimensions: ~ r0 = (x0 ; z0 ). The source is the point of re ection. t0 : Real time of the source. T : Period of receiver registration. = T ? t : Inverse receiver time. 0 = T ? t0 : Inverse source time. ~ or H ~. P : Any scalar component of E g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) : Green's function for di usion. G(~ r ; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) : Green's image function for g.
On one hand we can write that the migrated eld at source coordinates has to satisfy:
@P M (~ r0 ; t0 ) = 0 (2.43) @t0 On the other hand we will de ne a Green's function g that answers to the following condition: r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) = ?4 (~ r2 r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) + 0 n @g(~ r ?~ r0 ) (t ? t0 ) (2.44) 0 g (~ @t0 If we now multiply 2.43 with g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) and 2.44 with P M (~ r0 ; t0 ) and integrate the result over space + and over time from 0 to t , we get the following equation:
r P M (~ r ;t ) ?
2 0 0 0
Z t+
0
dt0
0
M (~ r0 ; t0 )r2 r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) ? g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 )r2 r0 ; t0 ) dV0 P M (~ 0 g (~ 0P Z t+ ZZZ @P M (~ r0 ; t0 ) = ?4 P M (~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) + g(~ r; t) r ; t j ~ r r0 ; t0 ) @g(~ dt0 dV0 P M (~ 0 ; t0 ) n @t @t 0 0 0
I ZZZ ZZZ
ZZZ
We will now use Green's theorem, which states that since:
(2.45)
Ugrad(V )dS =
I
(grad(U )grad(V )dv +

ZZZ
U r2 V dv
(2.46) (2.47)
then:
Ugrad(V ) ? V grad(U )]dS =
U r2 V ? V r2 U ]dv
So when we apply this theorem to the rst integral of equation 2.45 and perform the time integration on the second this will result in:

P M (~ r; t) = 41
Z t+
0
19
4 This is due to the fact that the causality principle dictates that g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) = 0 when t < t0 . We now ~ =~ still have to construct a Green's function that can be used in this case. We will de ne R r?r ~0 , and = t ? t0 . We can write that g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) is the result of an one-, two-, or three-dimensional Fourier integral: Z ~ (p pR ~ ; ) = 1 N ei~ ~; )dVp (2.49) g (R ~ (2 ) with to be de ned, N will be 1,2 or 3 depending on the number of dimensions and p ~ contains the ~. Fourier variables associated to R On the basis of this equation we can say that: @g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) = 1 Z ei~ @ dV ~ ?p2 ? pR (2.50) r2 g ( ~ r ; t j ~ r ; t ) ? 0 0 0 n 0 n p ~ 0 N @t0 (2 ) @ because @t0 = ?@ . Also one can state that: 1 Z ei~ ~ dV = (R pR ~) (2.51) p ~ (2 )N Application of equations 2.44 and 2.51 in equation 2.50 results in:
0 0 0 0 0
dt0 dS0 g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 )grad0 (P M (~ r0 ; t0 )) ? P M (~ r0 ; t0 )grad0 (g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 )) ZZZ +v dV P M (~ r ; t )g(~ r; tj~ r ; t )]
t0 =0
(2.48)
Z Z 1 1 ~ ~ i~ p R pR ?4 (2 )N e ( )dVp ?p2 ? 0 n @ ~ = (2 )N ei~ @ By assuming equality of the integrals we can deduce following formula for :
dVp ~
(2.52) (2.53)
4 ( ) = p2 + Solution of this di erential equation for results in:

? = 4 e
0
@ @ u( )
where u( ) is the Heaviside step function:
p2
(2.54) (2.55)
1 t ? t0 > 0 0 t ? t0 < 0 Insertion of this de nition of into formula 2.49 of the Green's function will result in:
u(t ? t0 ) =
g(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) = (2 )4 N
= (2 )4 N
n n
~e pR u( ) ei~
p2 ? 0 n dVp ~ px ? 0 n dpx p2 y n p2 z
(2.56) (2.57) (2.58) (2.59)
u( )
1
+
?1
Z Z
eipx Rx e
1
+
?1
? eipy Ry e 0 1
dpy
n
?1
? eipz Rz e 0
dpz
This is of course assuming we work in three dimensions. If only two dimensions are available (for example x and z the second integral becomes 1).

When we concentrate on the exponent in the rst integral we can change variables:
20
ipx Rx ?
p2 x
0
px = ? p
= ?
0
p
0 2
ip 0 ? p n Rx
2
0
2 n Rx
2 n Rx
(2.60) (2.61)
where = px ? i 0 2 n Rx . The rst integral will thus become:

Z
1 ?? e 0 ?1
+
2 2 ? 0 4n Rx ? 0 4n Rx dpx = e
1 ?? e 0 ?1
+
d =
r
0
2 ? 0 4nRx e
(2.62)
Performing the same transformation for all integrals results in following total Green's function:
p u(t ? t0 ) (2.63) e 2 For our implementation however we will use the image Green's function G(~ r; tj~ r0 ; t0 ) which will be de ned as:
0 0
g(~ r; tj~ r 0 ; t0 ) = 4
0 4n R2
What we measure is the wavefront emitted by the source, but at the earth surface, thus at z0 = 0. If we now introduce Green's image function in equation 2.48 with this constraint that z0 = 0 the resulting formula for the migrated eld will become:
G(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; z0 ; t0 ) = g(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0; z0 ; t0 ) ? g(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; ?z0; t0 ) dg In this case Gjz0 =0 = 0 and grad0 (G) = 2 dz 0
Z t+ I
0
(2.64)
P M (x; y; z; t) = ?2
4
r; tj~ r 0 ; t0 ) dS0 P M (x0 ; y0; 0; t0 ) dg(~ dz

0
z0 =0
(2.65)
2.6.5 Phase Shift Migration 12]
This type of migration takes place in the frequency domain. The general theory behind this approach can be summarized as follows for seismic applications. Given is the data p(x; z = 0; t) that is measured along a plane at z = 0. Given is also the known velocity of propagation c = c(z ) that can be either constant or variable with depth. The wave equation will then be: Applying a Fourier transform that has the kernel ei!t results in:
x; z; t) = 0 r p(x; z; t) ? c1 @ p(@t
2 2 2 2
(2.66) (2.67)
@ 2 P (kx ; z; !) = (? !2 + k2 )P (k ; z; !) @z 2 c2 x x Where P (kx ; z; !) is the Fourier transform of p(x; z; t). q 2 ! 2 leads to the solution: De nition of kz = sgn(!) c2 ? kx
P (kx ; z; !) = Aeikz z + Be?ikz z (2.68) Assuming upward coming waves only we can state that A = 0. Since at z = 0 we have the measured data B = P (kx ; 0; !). The formula of the wavefront at depth z is then: P (kx ; z; !) = P (kx ; 0; !)e?ikz z
(2.69)
21
The migrated image M (x; z ) will then be the inverse Fourier transform of the downward continued wavefront at t = 0.
M (x; z ) = p(x; z; t = 0) =
XX
An idea of a MATLAB code for this type of migration can be (just an idea, it remains to be checked): for iz = 1:nz z=iz*dz; for iw = -wnyquist:wnyquist; w=dw*iw; D=0; for ik = -iknyquist:iknyquist kx=dkx*ik; if abs(kx) < abs(w/c); kz = sgn(w)*sqrt((w/c)^2 - kx^2); D(ik) = e^(i*kz*z)*P(ik,iw); end; end; d = i t(D); M(:,z) = M(:,z) + D(:); end; end;
kx !
P (kx ; 0; !)e?i(kx x+kz z)
(2.70)
This method is a variant of the phase shift method described in paragraph 2.6.5 that is only valid for a constant propagating velocity c. The trick is to change variables in the formula for the migrated image:
2 x ! = ?kz c 1 + k 2 kz
2.6.6 FK Migration 12]
(2.71)
so that:
With this change the formula for the migrated image becomes:
d! = kz c2 dkz !
(2.72) (2.73)
This way the migration can be performed by a two dimensional Fourier Transform of the transformed data, scaled by k!z . This will seriously reduce the computational complexity.
Z Z z i(kz z+kx x) M (x; z ) = c2 dkz dkx k ! P (kx ; 0; !)e
2.6.7 Comments and Discussion
The rst thing one has to emphasize is that the accuracy of the migration will depend on the knowledge of the physical parameters of the soil. It is possible to measure them or even to approximate them on the basis of tables of laboratory measurements, but the main requirement will remain that the properties of the soil must not change too drastically within one image. Indeed if, when scanning one B-scan, the electro-magnetic properties of the soil change, general migration techniques will become useless. If it is possible to have an accurate estimation of the properties of the soil to perform this transformation e ciently the results could be used in several steps of the pattern recognition algorithm. The migrated image will give more accurate information about the exact position and depth of re ectors, which can be added in the detection step. It would allow us to better pinpoint those regions in a scanned surface that deserve a closer look.
22
Further it would be quite thinkable that the shape of the original re ector would be better represented in the migrated image. This type of information can be used in the recognition algorithm as a supplementary feature. This could especially be done when migrating all B-scans of a C-scan (or even better, extrapolating the migration algorithm to directly calculate the 3-D migration results) to give a view of the objects shape. O course all this depends on the knowledge of the properties of the soil. In uence on the results from noise and clutter also have to be studied further. Nevertheless, it seems that this approach holds enough promises to warrant further study.
Chapter 3
C-scan processing
3.1 Introduction
A C-scan is a three dimensional data structure that is acquired, by scanning a regular two dimensional horizontal grid. We will rst address the problem of tomography that will try to inverse the problem, and continue with a pseudo tomographic process called array beam imaging. We will discuss polarimetry, which is not really a processing technique, but a di erent way of acquiring data. Finally we will show some ways to compress the three dimensional structure in a two dimensional image.
3.2.1 Introduction
3.2 Tomography
The general idea of tomography is to use the acquired data and a propagation model to solve the inverse problem and to nd the position and shape of the sources. In this case these sources will be the scatterers in the subsurface. Most of these methods are based on array scanning systems with a resolution smaller than the detected objects.
3.2.2 Reconstruction
In 4] a tomographic method is introduced for impulse radar operating in pulse echo mode. This method was designed to detect anomalies in solid concrete. The data was acquired with a low-power single-pulse video-band pulser with a resistively loaded dipole antenna having an approximate beamwidth of 140o. This system produced a signal having a frequency content from approximately 500 MHz to 3.5 GHz. With this, the surface was scanned with 1.27 cm sample spacing. A preprocessing step consisting of standard background subtraction as well as pulse deconvolution, is applied to the data before the actual processing. The main idea behind the processing is the plane-to-plane backward propagation method. If we consider the measured data r(x; y; z ) as the result of a synthetic two-dimensional planar array of antennas, and we have the object distribution o(x; y; z ) in the subsurface (this is what we want to estimate), then for each wavelength in the emitted signal we can write:
r(x; y; ) =
o(x; y; z 0 ; )u(x; y; z 0 ; )] g(x; y; z 0; )dz 0

jkr
(3.1)
Here is a convolution, u(x; y; z 0; ) is the emitted wave eld, and g(x; y; z 0; ) is the Green's function for a homogeneous background:
r0 this can be expressed as:
If the source is an isotropic radiator (the same amount of energy is emitted in all directions) at position 23
g(x; y; z ; ) = e 4 r p 2 2 2 where r = x + y + z and wavenumber k = 2 = .
(3.2)
CHAPTER 3. C-SCAN PROCESSING

jk(r?r0 ) u(x; y; z ; ) = 4e (r ? r ) 0
Z Z Z
24 (3.3)
and the received wave eld becomes:
r(x; y; ) =
=
o(x; y; z 0 ) g2 (x; y; z 0; )dz 0

(
jk(r?r0 ) jk(r?r0 ) dr0 o(r) 4e (r ? r ) ] 4e (r ? r ) dz 0

0 0
p 2 ?fy 2 j 2 z 1= 2 ?fx 2 2 fx + fy = 1= 2 e H (fx ; fy ; z ; ) = (3.4) 0 otherwise 2 2 where fx and fy are the spatial frequencies in the x and y direction. The spatial spectrum of the equivalent source S (the re ecting object is called source) is then given by:
S (fx; fy ; z ) = R(fx; fy ; )H + (fx ; fy ; z ; )d
Z
The wave propagation is modeled as a spatial linear lter given as:
(3.5)
where R is the spectrum of the received wave eld and + denotes a pseudo inverse. The estimate for the source (object) distribution is then given by the 2D inverse Fourier transform of S . To remove the dependency of g2 equation 3.4 is derived with respect to k:
r0 (x; y; ) = @ r(x; y; ) = C @k
o(x; y; z 0 ) g(x; y; z 0 ; =2)dz 0
(3.6)
with C a constant. This derivation has a physical meaning: di erentiating with respect to k in the frequency domain corresponds to multiplying by a factor t, which will exactly compensate the factor r ? r0 in the denominator, or in other words remove the loss due to spherical expansion of the incident wave eld. So the actual lter is applied to the gain compensated data and, the object distribution is calculated. In practice the data has to be recorded for several wavelengths. After a derivation with respect to the wavenumber (inverse proportional to the wavelength) the data is ltered by the proposed wave propagation lter. The resulting data is than the object con guration. The result shown in this article 4] is quite impressive: a good three dimensional image of a scanned structure is created. This method warrants further study for the application in detection in more cluttered environments.
3.3.1 Introduction
3.3 Array Beam Imaging
The method described in this paragraph is called Array Beam Imaging (ABI) and is concentrated upon processing three dimensional radar data to achieve an accurate 3D visualization of the data. This is not a real tomographic method since it does not start from a propagation model it tries to invert. Instead this method uses only the data and some knowledge about the acquisition array. The main aim is to show the level of re ected energy from the interior of a medium, based on acoustic, seismic or electromagnetic waves. This method is based on 6]. For Seismic waves, high frequency elds (KHz range) allow the general shape characteristics of a land mine to be resolved. For electromagnetic waves elds in the GHz (radar) range have the same wavelength (10 cm range) and therefore the same resolution capability as the before mentioned seismic waves. Although re ection amplitudes are equivalent for seismic and EM waves, the poor propagation of EM waves under wet conditions will result in the use of seismic ABI methods for wet soil conditions, and EM ABI methods for dry soils. There is an overlap in applicability and in those cases a "dual technology" approach is quite attractive.
25
The wave eld is generated by an array of controlled sources which are in contact with the scanned medium. The wave eld will propagate into this medium as an approximation of a plane wave front. When it encounters targets (objects present in the medium), part of the incident wave is backscattered. Recording the re ected wave eld is done by an array of receivers that is spread out over the same area as the emitting array. Out of each of the receivers one time signal is extracted per emitted wave. One can use calibration sources to estimate both attenuation parameters and propagation speeds of the medium. This is done by placing a number of calibration sources (these are emitting elements) near the receiver array. The placement is at the same depth of the array, and at both sides of it. So when a signal is emitted towards the array it will travel through the upper layer of the soil. The distance between the sources and each of the elements of the receiver array is considered known. Since the distance between these sources and each of the receivers is di erent we obtain a number of signals for di erent source-receiver distances. When one plots the maximum amplitude in these signals in function of these source receiver distances, one can see an exponential decay given by: (3.7) I (r) = 1 I where I0 is the emitted intensity, r is the distance between emitter and receiver, and is the attenuation coe cient of the local soil. Since I (r) is experimentally determined, the attenuation coe cient can be estimated. One has to mention here that the proposed method will only give the average attenuation between emitter and receiver, and that for further analysis this attenuation is considered homogeneously present in the whole scanned volume (e.g. no variance of with the depth is considered). Also the e ect of the small objects in the scanned volume on the total attenuation of the wave is considered negligible, and the total scanned volume is assumed homogeneous. When knowing the distance between source and receiver, and estimating the arrival time of the measured signal, one is also able to estimate the propagation velocity of the medium. A more accurate value will be achieved, when repeating this estimation for all source receiver distances, and averaging them. Again one has to mention that the resulting propagation velocity will only be an average estimate for the top layer in the soil. In the further processing it is assumed that the same velocity is homogeneously present in the entire scanned volume.
3.3.2 Calibration
3.3.3 Processing
Time shift
The data signals coming from the di erent receivers in the array are combined so that the array is used as a lens to focus on a particular small volume element. The re ected energy from that volume element characterizes its intrinsic re ectivity. The size of these volume elements can be in the order of a fraction of the smallest wavelength present in the emitted wave. For GHz EM elds this will allow to visualize objects of a few cm (within a scanned volume of several cubic meters). The used focusing techniques are derivatives of the phased array beam forming method. The basic principle of this method is to calculate the correct time delay that has to be introduced between the signals of the di erent receivers, so that the signals coming from one particular volume element will be added constructively. Indeed, when one looks at the two dimensional plane underneath the array, for each point in this plane the distance towards each of the elements of the receiver array can be calculated. As homogeneous propagation velocity was assumed, the re ected signals emanating from that particular volume element will arrive at the di erent sensors in the array with a time shift that is proportional to these calculated distances. Since the calibration allowed to estimate an average propagation velocity, these distances can be easily recalculated into time shifts. These time shifts will then be applied to the di erent signals in order to focus on that particular volume element. This method is called beam steering the array. Summing these shifted signals (called stacking) will enhance the signals coming from the particular volume element, and will partially or wholly cancel re ections from other positions, as well as multiple re ections.
26
As was mentioned this method is based on the phased array processing methods. However there are still some large di erences. First of all the goal of a phased array is to be able to scan a larger volume with a smaller array. Therefore the emitted beam will be already constituted of time shifted emitted signals so that it is emitted at a certain angle with respect to the array. Scanning will occur when this angle is changed. In our case the emitted beam is launched perpendicular to the array, and is assumed to be a plane wave. The receiver part in phased array will also be processed with the same time shifts as the emitted part in order to be listening in the same direction as was emitted. Again varying the angle will result in one semi circular image of the scanned area. In the Array Beam Imaging method one is not interested in viewing the re ections at a certain angle but in focusing the array to a particular volume element. This will also result in time shifts between the di erent signals, but these time shifts will no longer be linearly increasing from one receiver to the next (as they are for phased arrays) but will be directly dependent on the position of the focused volume element. Based on the knowledge of the attenuation (the attenuation as function of frequency is achieved by passing the same sliding frequency lter on the data obtained by calibration, and then calculating an attenuation coe cient for each frequency) and the emitted energy Eemitt , one can calculate how much energy arrives at a certain position in the scanned volume: 1 (3.8) E (r) = E The measured re ected energy after focusing of a certain volume element, can also be multiplied by r in order to calculate the real re ected energy at that time and position. The total re ectivity of the volume element is then calculated by simply dividing received and re ected total energies
emitt r
Re ectivity calculation
total energy reflectivity = reflected received total energy
(3.9)
3.3.4 Imaging
Once we have a physically meaningful re ection coe cients (The "intrinsic re ectivity") for each of the small volume elements, one can create a tomographic image by rendering these values in a three dimensional structure. Clutter will cause many strong re ections that will overlap in time. They can obscure nearby re ecting objects by casting shadows. In an attempt to resolve this problem, a secondary processing step is applied. The general idea is to detect in the tomographic image all visible re ectors. Based on the position of these re ectors the above mentioned processing is inverted to get the parts of the original signals that were the origin of these re ectors. Eliminating these parts, produces a residual time series in which signals from already imaged re ectors are removed. Relaunching the standard ABI process will then result in secondary re ector images of which all already detected objects were deleted, and so the obscured ones appear. This process can be repeated until no new objects are found.
3.3.5 Identi cation
Once the complete tomographic image is achieved it is ltered with a lter function "matched" to the 3D shape of a mine. This ltering is done in the spatial wave number domain. This will produce an image with sharp spikes at the center of re ecting objects. Normalization of this image gives a three dimensional probability density map. Analysis time is considered quite acceptable for demining purposes. Computer simulations show a high likelihood of detection under conditions expected in the eld. In extreme clutter, performances are lowered, but can be improved by the dual eld approach. Estimated price: a few thousand dollars for an image from 2 to 3 m on a side and 1m depth in a minute or two.
27
To enhance the Signal to Noise ratio, a number of preprocessing steps can be introduced on the data, before starting the actual processing algorithm. The rst simple possibility is to summate a number of acquisitions (called stacking). This requires a repeatable wave generation process by the source. This is performed directly at the acquisition stage and further processing is done on these stacked signals. Another type of processing that can be applied here is to lter each time signal with sliding narrow frequency lter. This will result in the generation of a new time signal for each of the lter positions (one time signal is expanded to N time signals which each contain a small fraction of the frequency content of the original signal). Since wave speeds and attenuations are frequency dependent, use of a broader spectrum in the emitted signal can lead to blurring of the image. If the above mentioned calibration process is repeated for each of the di erent frequencies (the signals used for calibration are also passed through the same sliding frequency lter) the frequency dependency of the soil properties can be obtained. The ABI process can thus be repeated for each of these ltered signals to create a tomographic image representing a fairly narrow frequency band. Summation of these images will then result in a sharper, more complete total image.
3.3.6 Averaging and ltering
3.4 Polarimetry
3.4.1 Introduction
Acquiring radar polarimetric data can enhance the contrast between di erent parts of the scanned scene. This is however not a signal processing tool, it is simply another way of acquiring data. The main principle of polarimetry is quite di erent in radar applications than in Infra red ones. The active nature of radar will allow emitting a polarized wave, and the receiver part can be tuned to be sensible to a certain type of polarization. The re ecting objects will due to their shape and structure be sometimes more re ective for certain polarization types than others. This will result in signals with more discriminating object information than the background.
In 7] the theoretical principle of radar polarimetry is presented. The basic formula that is used in this approach is the formula of the scattering matrix of an object. t r 1 E1 E1 S11 S12 p (3.10) = t r E2 S21 S22 E2 4 r2 t and E t represent the emitted, and E r and E r the received elds. These In this formula the terms E1 2 1 2 eld components will determine the polarization, which can be linear or circular. If linear polarization is t will be the horizontal polarization (H), and the second one E t the vertical used, the rst component E1 2 one (V). If the emitted beam is completely horizontally polarized, the second component will be zero. t represents the left circular polarization (L) ant the When using circular polarization the component E1 t component E2 the right one (R). r and E r will represent the re ected components. The same division in linear or circular The terms E1 2 components goes here. The scatter matrix itself will show how much of a certain type of polarization is re ected by the scattering object. This can be measured by simply assembling the four di erent constructions that are possible. For the linear case the scattering matrix will become: where:
3.4.2 Theory
SHH SHV SV H SV V
(3.11)
HH: Horizontal polarization emitted, Horizontal polarization measured. HV: Horizontal polarization emitted, Vertical polarization measured.

VH: Vertical polarization emitted, Horizontal polarization measured. VV: Vertical polarization emitted, Vertical polarization measured. and for the circular case: where:
28
SRR SRL SLR SLL
(3.12)
RR: Right polarization emitted, Right polarization measured. RL: Right polarization emitted, Left polarization measured. LR: Left polarization emitted, Right polarization measured. LL: Left polarization emitted, Left polarization measured. The scatter matrices for certain canonical shapes can be calculated as there are for linear polarization: Sphere: 0 Ssphere = 1 0 1 (3.13)
Here is the orientation angle of the wire. One can notice here immediately that HH and VV polarizations will give di erent results. The arriving polarization is decomposed in a factor along the line, and a factor perpendicular to it. Only the parallel factor will be re ected. If horizontal polarization E is emitted the parallel factor will be Ecos( ). This is re ected and upon arrival again decomposed in its horizontal (Ecos2 ( )) and its vertical (Ecos( )sin( )) components. The same is valid for vertical re ections. Diplane (two sided corner re ector (relative orientation of 45o):
This is simple to see because a spherical target will not disturb linear polarization in re ection. So horizontal polarization will be re ected as perfect horizontal polarization and the same is valid for vertical polarization. Line target: 1 2 sin2 2 (3.14) Swire = 1cos sin2 sin2
2
Sdiplane =
1 2
cos2 sin2
?cos2
1 2
sin2
(3.15)
Here is the orientation angle of the diplane versus the incident beam. Helix: 1 1 j Shelix = 2 j ?1
(3.16)
Note here that this transfer matrix between incident linear polarization and re ected circular one.
Once a scatter matrix has been measured through four experiments it can be decomposed into a number of these canonical matrices, and so one can look for objects with a speci c shape. For example the decomposition can be done in sphere, diplane and helix. This is the SDH decomposition: (3.17) It can be shown that this type of representation can be directly calculated out of the circular polarization scatter matrix as follows:
S ] = ej ej s ks S ]s + kd S ]d( ) + kh S ]h( )

ks + jSLLj < jSRR j : kd ? jSLLj > jSRR j : kd + jSLLj < jSRR j : kh ? jSLLj > jSRR j : kh
= = = = = = = s =
29
if if if if
1=2( RR + LL ? ) 1=4( RR ? LL + ) RL ? 1=2( RR + LL )
jSRL j jSLL j jSRR j jSRR j ? jSLLj jSLL j ? jSRR j
Here jSij j is the magnitude and ij the phase of the complex value Sij . Furthermore it is also suggested to create pseudo color images where each of the polarization combinations represents a di erent color: red green blue LIN HV HH VV CIRC RL RR LL SDH ks kd kh The three types of representation were then compared on the basis of an airborne SAR image. LIN and SDH appear to have the best contrast between the di erent targets. In the examples only the magnitudes of the di erent components were used, the phases however might also give some additional information. 21] is a review paper about this type of decomposition in scatter matrices. It retakes the representation shown in 7] (This seems to be the most widely used presentation for this type of applications), and also presents other ways to mathematically represent the use of polarization (next to the scatter matrices, also the Mueller matrix and Stokes vector as well as the eigenvector analysis of the covariance and coherency matrices are introduced). This is a purely theoretical paper, that can be used for reference, if somewhere one of the latter representations is used. In 8] the polarimetric SAR was used to detect buried mines form the ground. Here no theory about polarimetry is given, only the results are analyzed. Two experiments were set up: one with di erent types of mines in a sand background, and one with one mine in di erent backgrounds as sand, grass, gravel and mould. The three combinations of linear polarization (HV, HH and VV) were then shown and the resulting images were quite di erent for the di erent polarizations. The HH polarization seemed to give the best result in both experiments, although in the experiment with the various backgrounds (especially with grass) even this best result was not very good.
3.4.3 Test Results
3.4.4 SAR Polarimetry
In 9] a very brief overview is presented about the tests with an UWB polarimetric SAR. Also the VV and HH polarizations are compared. Although due to the relationship between the re ection coe cient and Brewster's angle for vertically polarized waves the experiments should have shown more penetration for VV versus HH, still the HH images showed more contrast.
3.5 Karhunen Loeve transformation

3.5.1 Introduction
Another idea to process C-scan data is the application of the Karhunen Loeve transformation. The theory of this transformation is explained in 19]. The main idea is to reduce the sequence of images into one or two images in which all the dynamic information of the sequence is concentrated. In other words the areas that change throughout the sequence (such as objects) will be accentuated.
30
First it would be logical to apply this transformation to the subsequent C-scans. Indeed if somewhere in the subsurface an object is present the resulting image will show its position independently of the objects depth. A possible drawback of the method is that in very inhomogeneous soils the inhomogeneities can add up to a greater dynamic range than that caused by the presence of an object so that the object can be masked. In this case the transform will remain indecisive. Advantages of the method are that it does not need any training or parameter estimation, and that it can be performed directly on the not preprocessed data. Preliminary tests of the transform on the available data showed that indeed after applying the transform and averaging the ve rst transformed images (the original sequence had 512 images) the (x,y) position of the object could be detected with a simple threshold. Possible ideas for further research could be the study of the covariance matrix used for the transformation. Indeed it is quite thinkable that this matrix already holds enough information to pinpoint the position of the object. A possible application would be to calculate this position in the three dimensions by performing the transformation not only on C-scans, but also on the B-scans and the slices perpendicular to the B-scans. An interesting thing to investigate could be the result of the Karhunen Loeve transform on the data after 3D migration was applied. Another problem is the presence of the air-ground interface re ection. A few tests were performed to see whether the Karhunen Loeve transformation applied to the B-scans would be able to remove this re ection. The answer was no, because the large re ection present in all the B-scans will cause a cluster of points in the dixel space far from the origin. The actual object re ections will cause another cluster closer to the origin. Since the Karhunen Loeve transform does not use any learning it is not able to normalize the clusters like the Kittler and Young transform and so the cluster far from the origin will be predominant in the transformation. So not the background re ection but the actual useful signal will be attenuated.
3.5.2 Application and comments
3.5.3 First results
The Karhunen Loeve algorithm was adapted and implemented. The resulting program was executed on a number of test C-scans. The top 300 C-scans were used each time (since almost no useful information could be found in the lower ones).
Slice 50
Slice 100
Slice 150
Slice 200
Figure 3.1: A number of slices out of the original C-scan. In the original sequence ( gure 3.1), there are some images where the object can be seen (still within some clutter, but most of the images give no or very little indication of the presence of an object.
31
First Transformed
Second Transformed Third Transformed
Figure 3.2: The three rst transformed images. The transformed sequence ( gure 3.2), however shows a clear indication of the object presence in a reduced background clutter environment.
3.6 Clutter removal and C-scan reduction

3.6.1 Introduction
In 20] Daniels introduces a method to compress the di erent slices of a C-scan into one image, while reducing clutter and enhancing object presence. This method is based on the assumption that the correlation between subsequent slices is larger in those areas where objects are present than in those where there are none. Besides that also two image restoration methods are mentioned.
3.6.2 Restoration
In order to get a more focused view of a C-scan slice the application of an inverse lter is suggested. What is essentially meant is that one tries to perform a deconvolution with the antenna footprint. This is the major drawback of the method, since this antenna footprint has to be measured or at least estimated. Fortunately it seems that a circular Gaussian is a good estimate for this footprint, so that the experimental estimation becomes easier. Another way is to use a two dimensional correlation lter, in search for speci c objects. This method will use a target mask (usually a subset of the main image) to assess the degree of 2D cross correlation within the image. This seems to give good results on a synthetic example, on real radar data the results will probably be less convincing. NOTE: In 20] some of the formulas are not very clear. This section describes our own interpretation of the method, based on the paper. This interpretation seemed to be the correct one after discussion with the author. The proposed method will encompass a number of steps. First for each slice in the C-scan its average gray value is subtracted, and the absolute value is taken. If the original three dimensional C-scan data is denoted Axyz , where x; y and z range between 0 and N ? 1, then
3.6.3 C-scan reduction
ARxyz = jAxyz ? AVz j
AVz =
N ?1 N ?1 X X
0 0
Axy
(3.18)
32
Since the main idea is that the object information will be spread out over several depths, and the clutter won't, a number of cross correlation vectors can be derived from the matrix AR such that
R(z; k) =
AZ (z ):AZ (z ? k)dxdy
(3.19)
Here AZ (z ) = fARxy gz . The main idea is that for a certain depth z we wish to express the slice at that depth resembles the slices at other depths. This is done by multiplying the slice at depth z with that at depth z ? k and then integrating over x and y. This will result in one value which expresses the "correlation" between slices z and z ? k. If this is done for all possible k values one will obtain an N dimensional vector which expresses the "correlation" between slice z and all the other slices in the set. If such a vector is calculated for each of the depths z one obtains an N N dimensional matrix R(z; k) which will be used in further steps. Next an intermediate matrix ARM is calculated for each depth z : (3.20) In this set of matrices the areas which show a certain "correlation" between subsequent slices will be extra highlighted. One could also extend the comparison to z ? 2 to z + 2, or even further. This would highlight objects that spread even further in depth. However if one would take the range to wide, the background would become prominent, and blur out the objects. The resulting submatrices are then weighted with a coe cient kz derived from the statistical properties of each submatrix ARz . with:
ARMz = Rz;z?1 :ARz?1 ]: Rz;z :ARz ]: Rz;z+1 :ARz+1 ]
ARMWz = kz :ARMz kz = ((0:5:mean(ARz )) + std(ARz ))
(3.21)
(3.22) This coe cient expresses how much energy and variance of it (this points to an object) is present in each submatrix. The slices with a large energy and variance (the energy is concentrated in a certain region) are this way extra highlighted. Finally the combination of all depths is done based on this weighted data set:
CARMW =
"
N ?1 X z=0
ARMWz :
#2 "
N ?1 X z=0
peak(ARMWz )
(3.23)
Where peak means the peak value in the matrix.
3.6.4 Comments and results
Alternatives to the method were suggested as deconvolving the matrices ARMWz with the antenna footprint before the nal combination to the CARMW matrix in 3.23, normalizing the submatrices, and to subdivide the image into subregions and treat them separately. The regions are weighed sinusoidically in order to have a uent transition from one region to another, and the sinusoids are chosen so that their sum is always one. Finally the results can be added to gain a clearer image. The results shown by Daniels on a set of radar data seem rather promising. A possible application could be to use this method in the same way as the Karhunen Loeve transform and maybe even combine the results of both as well for detection as for shape extraction. The proposed method was implemented on three C-scans of a PFM-1 mine, a PMN mine and a stone. Note that the raw data was used (so no prior background subtraction or ltering). The results can be seen in gure 3.3, and are quite good.
33
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Figure 3.3: The resulting CARMW images starting from a C-scan of a PFM mine, a PMN mine and a stone.
Bibliography
1] "Estimation of the soil permittivity and conductivity by a GPR antenna"; Y. Wakita and Y Yamaguchi; GPR'96: International conference on Ground Penetrating Radar; September 30 - October 3 1996; Sendai, Japan; pp 123-127. 2] "Some aspects on the estimation of electromagnetic wave velocities"; R. Fruwirth and R Schmoller; GPR'96: International conference on Ground Penetrating Radar; September 30 - October 3 1996; Sendai, Japan; pp 135-138. 3] "Resolution in radar tomography for wall or pillar inspection"; S. Valle and L. Zanzi; GPR'96: International conference on Ground Penetrating Radar; September 30 - October 3 1996; Sendai, Japan; pp 229-234. 4] "Three-dimensional ground penetrating radar imaging using multi-frequency di raction tomography"; J. Mast and E. Johansson; Spie vol 2275: Proceedings on advanced microwave and millimeterwave detectors; July 1994. (http://www-dsed.llnl.gov/documents/imaging/jemspie94.html) 5] "An image reconstruction methos using GPR data"; Z. Wu and C. Liu; GPR'96: International conference on Ground Penetrating Radar; September 30 - October 3 1996; Sendai, Japan; pp 241246. 6] "Array Beam Imaging (ABI): Basic features", TRAC-NA, February 1996 7] "On the importance of utilizing polarimetric information in radar imaging and clasi cation"; E. Krogager and W. Boener, AGARD SSP symposium, 22-25 April, 1996, Toulouse, France. 8] "Anti-personnel mine detection by using polarimetric microwave imaging"; A. Sieber, J. Fortuny, G. Nesti and M. Fritzsche, Spie proceedings vol 2496, 1995, pp 14-19. 9] "Imaging of buried and foliage-obscured objects with an ultrawideband polarimetric SAR"; D. Sheen, Spie proceedings vol 1942, 1995, pp 12-20. 10] "Source signature deconvolution of ground penetrating radar data"; F. Neves and J. Miller, GPR'96 International conference on ground penetrating radar, sept 30 - October 3 1996, pp 573-578. 11] "Detection of buried landmines using ground penetrating radar"; M. Fritze, Spie proceedings vol 2496, 1995, pp 100-108. 12] "GG552: Exploration and engineering in seismology", Jerry Schuster, Utah Tomography & Modeling/Migration Consortium, University of Utah, Electronic Books http://utam.geophys.utah.edu/ ebooks/gg552 13] "Seismic Data Processing", Ozdogan Yilmaz, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 1987, Tulsa, USA 14] "Surface Penetrating Radar", David Daniels, The Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1996, London, UK 15] "Resistivity imaging by Time Domain Electromagnetic Migration (TDEMM)", M.S. Zhdanov, P.N Traynin, O. Portniaguine, Exploration Geophysics, 1995, Volume 26, pp 186-194 16] "Underground imaging by frequency-domain electromagnetic migration", M.S. Zhdanov, P.N Traynin, J.R. Booker, Geophysics, 1996, Volume 61, pp 666-682 34
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17] "Methods of theoretical physics", P.M.Morse, H. Fleshbach, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1953. 18] "Radar imaging of underground objects in homoheneous soil using X-T-V data matrix"; H. Hayakawa, GPR'96 International conference on ground penetrating radar, sept 30 - October 3 1996, pp 579-584. 19] "Dynamic Infrared image sequence analysis for anti-personnel mine detection"; L. van Kempen, M, Kaczmarec, H. Sahli, J. Cornelis, SPS'98, Leuven, Belgium, pp 215-218 20] "Surface Penetrating Radar Image Quality"; D.J. Daniels, MD'98 second international conference on th detection of abandoned land mines, 12-14 October 1998, Edinburgh, UK, pp 68-72 21] "A review of target decomposition theorems in radar polarimetry"; S. R. Cloude and E. Pottier, IEEE Transactions on geoscience and remote sensing, March 1996, vol. 34, pp 498-518 22] "Processing ground penetrating radar data to improve resolution of near surface targets"; K. Gerlitz, M. Knoll, G. Cross, R. Luzitano, R. Knight, Proceedings SAGEEP, Geophysics, 1993, pp 561-574 23] "Advanced image processing technique for real time interpretation of Ground Penetrating Radar images"; L. Capineri, P. Grande, J. Temple, IEEE Transactions, 1998, vol. 9, pp 51-59 24] "The application of a nonlinear multiscale method to GPR image processing"; A. Pizurica, W. Philips, I. Lemahieu and M. Acheroy, Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference Signal and Image Processing, 27 - 31 October, 1998, Las Vegas, Nevada-USA. 25] "Feature extraction and classi cation methods for ultra-sonic and radar mine detection."; H. Sahli, E. Nyssen, L. van Kempen and J. Cornelis, IEEE Cesa'98 conference, 1 - 4 April, 1998, Tunis, Tunesia, pp 82-87.

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L. van Kempen, H. Sahli

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

J = E e2 (n)] = E (s(n) ? s ^(n))2 ] = E (s(n) ?

Since it goes that:

(2.7) (2.8) (2.9)

This can be rewritten as:

h(k)y(n ? k))y(n ? i)] = 0

Ssy = Sss = Syy ? Svv

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

average energy in object signals ? 1 SNR = average energy in background signals

2.3 Source Signal Deconvolution

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

2.4 Hyperbola estimation

Standard HT for straight lines

TOF = 2(D2 + (S ? Sc )2 )1=2 =v

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

2.5 Soil parameter estimation

2.5.2 Permittivity and conductivity

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

2.5.3 Velocity of propagation

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

2.5.4 X-T-V data matrix

k range from 1 to n).

max1 k n I (xi ; tj ; vk ) ave(xi ; tj ) 0 ? min1 k n I (xi ; tj ; vk ) ave(xi ; tj ) < 0

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

Ibinary (xi ; tj ; vk )jvk =vp (xs;ts ) =

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

2.6.2 Kircho Migration

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

Kircho Migration Theory

(r ; t ) dS 0 dt0 G(r; tjr0 ; t0 ) dP dn 0

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

G0 = G(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; z 0 ; t0 ) ? G(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; ?z 0; t0 )

(2.33) (2.34) (2.35)

dG0 (x; y; z; tj; x0 ; y0 ; z 0 = 0; t0 ) = 2 dG(x; y; z; tjx0 ; y0 ; z 0 = 0; t0 ) dz 0 dz 0

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

X X d (t ? t0 + jr ? r0 j=c) () P (r; t) dG P (x0 ; y0; z 0 ; t0 ) ccos = ? dn dt0 jr ? r0 j

_ (x0 ; y0 ; z 0; jr ? r0 j=c + t) cos( 0) P jr ? r jc

Migration tricks to improve quality of migrated images

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

200 2000 250 0 300 2000 350 4000 400 6000

300 0.5 350

2.6.4 Application to electro-magnetic waves

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

for 0 T for < 0 ; > T for z > 0 for j~ rj ! 1; z > 0

We will now use Green's theorem, which states that since:

(grad(U )grad(V )dv +

Ugrad(V ) ? V grad(U )]dS =

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

4 ( ) = p2 + Solution of this di erential equation for results in:

where u( ) is the Heaviside step function:

(2.56) (2.57) (2.58) (2.59)

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

where = px ? i 0 2 n Rx . The rst integral will thus become:

r; tj~ r 0 ; t0 ) dS0 P M (x0 ; y0; 0; t0 ) dg(~ dz

2.6.5 Phase Shift Migration 12]

CHAPTER 2. B-SCAN PROCESSING

P (kx ; 0; !)e?i(kx x+kz z)

2.6.6 FK Migration 12]

Z Z z i(kz z+kx x) M (x; z ) = c2 dkz dkx k ! P (kx ; 0; !)e