Computer tomography as imaging technique for ground penetrating radar — A case study

Computer tomography (CT) is mainly known for biological applications where inner parts of the human body are visualized. In this work computer tomography will be investigated as imaging technique for remote sensing and visualization of subsurface objects. This contribution presents a case study where CT is used in a unconventional way to demonstrate its capabilities for mapping subsurface objects in a GPR like scenario. The CT experiments for identification of buried objects will be contrasted with measurements of a conventional microwave GPR setup. The measured results underline the capability of both imaging methods for portraying visually obscured objects. The reconstructed image quality dependents largely on the object properties that have influence on the physical principle of the underlying imaging technique such as permittivity or specific absorption rate of x-rays. The reconstructed image obtained by the CT scan unveils a variety of details of the inner parts of the subsurface object.