Airborne GPR surveys via tomographic imaging: An analysis of the reconstruction capabilities
Catapano, Ilaria ; Crocco, Lorenzo ; Soldovieri, Francesco ; ...Longo, Francesco ; ...Formaro, Roberto ; et al.
Jun - 2012
DOI: 10.1109/ICGPR.2012.6254880
ISBN : 978-1-4673-2663-6

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type: Conference Proceedings

Abstract
GPR systems installed on helicopters or spotter planes represent effective monitoring tools to cover surface and underground characterization of wide areas. In this respect, the paper discusses the on field reconstruction capabilities resulting from the joint exploitation of a novel sounder system and an advanced data processing approach. The sounder system was built by CORISTA in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency, which promoted and founded the project. It is a pulsed radar working at 163 MHz and transmits a 10 MHz linearly frequency modulated signal (chirp) by using DDS (Direct Digital Synthesizer) technique. The transmitted peak power is about 200W over a 3\musec pulse length. The system exploits a log periodic antenna with four elements, GPS and an INS are used for storing position and attitude information. The data processing is faced by means of a microwave tomographic reconstruction approach, which is based on a simplified scattering model. In particular the Born approximation is adopted to formulate the imaging as a linear inverse scattering problem. The effectiveness of the system is shown by means of the tomographic images corresponding to the first trial surveys made with the sounder installed on a helicopter of the Italian Air Force.

keywords : Born approximation,CORISTA,GPR,GPS,Ground penetrating radar,Helicopters,INS,Image reconstruction,Italian Air Force,Radar imaging,Tomography,advanced data processing approach,airborne GPR survey,airborne platforms,airborne radar,approximation theory,direct digital synthesis,direct digital synthesizer,frequency 10 MHz,frequency 163 MHz,helicopter,linear inverse scattering problem,linearly frequency modulated signal,log periodic antenna,microwave tomographic reconstruction approach,microwave toomography,monitoring tool,on field reconstruction capability,pulsed radar,simplified scattering model,sounder radar system,sounder system,spotter plane,tomographic image,tomographic imaging,underground characterization