A microwave tomography strategy for underwater imaging via ground penetrating radar

Detection and monitoring of underwater structures is one of the most challenging applicative scenarios for remote sensing diagnostic techniques, among which ground penetrating radar (GPR). With this aim, an imaging strategy belonging to the family of microwave tomographic approaches is proposed herein. This strategy allows the imaging of objects located into a wet sand medium below a freshwater layer and it can find application in investigation of lakes, rivers, and hydraulic structures. The proposed strategy accounts for the layered structure of the scenario under test by exploiting a spatially variable equivalent permittivity in the inverse scattering model. This allows a reliable reconstruction of depth and horizontal size of underwater hidden objects. The imaging capabilities of the strategy are verified by processing experimental data referred to a laboratory environment reproducing a submerged archeological site at scale 1:1. The results are compared with those obtained by modelling the reference scenario as a homogeneous medium, in order to verify the effective improvement in terms of reconstruction accuracy.