Full-waveform inversion of multi-offset surface GPR data

Common ray-based techniques for analysing common midpoint (CMP) ground penetrating radar (GPR) data use only part of the measured traces and return results with limited resolution and non-quantitative values for conductivity. Due to the fact that full-waveform inversion uses all information of the measured traces, a higher resolution image of the subsurface and quantitative conductivity values can be obtained. Using an experimental dispersive CMP dataset, the results of dispersion analysis, i.e. permittivity and thickness, define the start model parameters for full-waveform inversion. After estimating an effective source wavelet, the full-waveform inversion based on a simplex search algorithm returns reliable permittivity and conductivity values of the subsurface.