SPOT-GPR analysis of ground penetrating radar signals recorded over the gneiss 14/20 region of the IFSTTAR geophysical test site: Preliminary results

SPOT-GPR stands for 'Sub-array Processing Open Tool for GPR applications' and is a MATLAB-based software that can semi-automatically find and localize ('spot') targets in ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data. It implements a sub-array processing method, which combines smart-antenna and radar algorithms. In this paper, SPOT-GPR is used to analyse real GPR signals taken from the Open Database of Radargrams of COST Action TU1208. The considered data were recorded over the gneiss 14/20 region of a geophysical test site in Nantes, France, by using a pulsed radar system equipped with 900-MHz ground-coupled antennas. The acquisition line ran over nine steel and PVC pipes hidden in the gravel; the pipes were placed in different positions by the sloping side of the test site, mutually close enough to be strongly interfering. In previous studies, SPOT-GPR had been already tested on synthetic and real data; however, the data analysed in this paper were recorded over a more complex scenario than the previously-considered ones. The preliminary results presented herein show that SPOT-GPR is capable of detecting seven out of the nine targets buried in the test site, and their positions are estimated with variable accuracy. Since all radargrams included in TU1208 database are available for the scientific community, this case study has the added value to enable a comparison of the method implemented in SPOT-GPR with different detection algorithms that will be possibly tested on the same data by other authors in the future.