Hyperbola summation based synthetic aperture radar technique for ground penetrating radar image focusing

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a remote sensing technique used to obtain information on subsurface features from data collected over the surface. The process of collecting data may be viewed as mapping from the object space to an image space. Since most GPRs use broad beamwidth antennas, the energy reflected from a buried structure is recorded over a large lateral aperture in the image space. A B-scan GPR image contains underground scatterers which exhibit defocused, hyperbolic characteristics. This is mainly due to the data collection scheme and the finite beam width of the main lobe of the GPR antenna. To invert this undesirable effect and obtain focused images, various migration or focusing algorithms have been developed. The algorithm in this paper analyzes received data of a shallow buried targets. The practical usage of this algorithm is tested on both simulated and experimental data. We have taken measurements using Stepped Frequency Continuous Wave(SFCW) radar set up. The proposed algorithm is applied to B-scan GPR images to enhance its resolution quality. The resultant images depicted an enhanced resolution characteristics after application of proposed algorithm.