Highly efficient CMP surveying with ground-penetrating radar utilising real-time kinematic GPS

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to describe a highly efficient common mid-point (CMP) data acquisition method for ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveying, which is intended to widen the application of GPR. The most important innovation to increase the efficiency of CMP data acquisition is continuous monitoring of the GPR antenna positions, using a real-time kinematic Global Positioning System (RTK-GPS). Survey time efficiency is improved because the automatic antenna locating system that we propose frees us from the most time-consuming process ? deployment of the antenna at specified positions. Numerical experiments predicted that the data density and the CMP fold would be increased by the increased efficiency of data acquisition, which results in improved signal-to-noise ratios in the resulting data. A field experiment confirmed this hypothesis. The proposed method makes GPR surveys using CMP method more practical and popular. Furthermore, the method has the potential to supply detailed groundwater information. This is because we can convert the spatially dense dielectric constant distribution, obtained by using the CMP method we describe, into a dense physical value distribution that is closely related to such groundwater properties as water saturation.