Permittivity estimation of a shallow-layered medium using high-resolution ground-penetrating radar

This paper proposes a method of permittivity estimation using ground penetrating radar (GPR). The proposed method can estimate the permittivity of a shallow-layered medium. In the proposed method, antenna calibration is introduced to improve the vertical resolution of the GPR. The conventional surface reflection method is slightly modified to be suitable for operation at a shallow depth since the antenna calibration impacts the signal amplitude being exploited to estimate the permittivity. Simulation and experimentation examples are illustrated to confirm that the proposed method can estimate the permittivity of each layer of dielectric ground medium. Simulations were divided into two main catalogues in order to investigate the resolution improvement and estimation accuracy of the GPR. The experimentation of the GPR along with the proposed method were conducted. The experimental results showed good agreement with those obtained from the commercial dielectric prob kit.