Compressive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing waveform based ground penetrating radar

Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of transportation infrastructure using ground penetrating radar (GPR) is an active research subject in now days. Impulse radar is one common GPR design scheme for its simple circuit architecture. However its weaknesses include low dynamic range and high cost complicate analog-to-digital converter (ADC) requirement. Stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) radar overcomes these obstacles by transmitting/receiving individual frequency tones sequentially, however with a low operating speed. This paper proposes a compressive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based GPR architecture to leverage operating efficiency. OFDM technique enables multi-tone frequency transmission/receiving, and CS technique allows sensing with reduced set of frequency tones without compromising sensing accuracy. The proposed compressive OFDM GPR design is evaluated using field data collected with a commercial GPR system.