3D Tomographic Image Reconstruction for Multistatic Ground Penetrating Radar

Multistatic GPR has the advantages of reducing survey time and leverages more comprehensive data collection. Traditionally in multistatic GPR data processing, the 2D B-scan image obtained from each receive antenna are simply stacked for 3D image reconstructions. However, such approach is typically inadequate as the multistatic GPR receivers are mounted with spatial offsets, causing back-scattering signals from the same target to have differing time of arrivals. For proper fusion of multistatic GPR data, migration methods that consider the transmitters and receivers spatial offset and data variations among different receiving antennas may be employed. In this study, the back-projection algorithm (BPA) is investigated. The algorithm consists of determining the wave travel path and associated travel time, and projecting the corresponding signal value back into space domain. Furthermore, antenna radiation pattern is incorporated. The BPA enables scatter shape reconstruction and is prone to parallel computing. For validation, multistatic GPR 3D tomographic image reconstruction is successfully applied to laboratory data.