Ground penetrating radar data processing for retrieval of utility material types and radius estimation

Commercial type reflective ground penetrating radar (GPR) systems have been widely used in subsurface utility mapping for extracting position and depth of the utility features lay underneath today´s city street. However, the utility of GPR for subsurface utility mapping is not fully exploited for retrieval of material recognition and geometrical properties of the utility features. This paper highlights the results of an approach for extracting information on subsurface material types and radius estimation from GPR backscatters. Results of study confirmed uniqueness coherent mean vectors of radar backscatter of tested features - mild steel, high density polyethylene (HDPE), medium density polyethylene (MDPE), and PVC pipes. The derived radius of these pipes and in-situ measurements also reported strong correlation (r²=0.9). Both these results offer new applications of GPR for reporting status of utility features and conditions, such defects of pipes or cables caused by aging and weathering processes.