Three-Dimensional Ray-Based Tomographic Approach for Contactless GPR Imaging

This article proposes a 3-D imaging approach for contactless ground penetrating radar surveys. The imaging problem is formulated in the linear inverse scattering context and solved by using the singular values decomposition tool. A ray-based model accounting for the electromagnetic (EM) signal propagation into an inhomogeneous medium is developed to accurately evaluate the kernel of the integral equation to be inverted. Under the proposed model, an analysis of the spatial resolution performance is carried out as a function of the geometrical and EM parameters of the scenario. To this end, theoretical concepts based on diffraction tomography and the singular value decomposition of the scattering operator are exploited. Reconstruction results based on full-wave simulated data assess the feasibility of the imaging approach.