A comparative study of GPR data processing based on Compensated Time-Reversal and Time-Reversal imaging

To improve the resolution of ground penetrating radar (GPR) signals, the Compensated Time-Reversal (CTR) method is applied, especially in lossy media, where the conventional time reversal method has the negative effect of dispersion and loss in the propagation medium. To create the CTR method, Time-Reversal (TR) processing combined with attenuation compensation based on continuous wavelet transform is applied. The application of both the TR and CTR methods to synthetic data showed a significant improvement of the radargram resolution, effectively differentiating anomalies within a low-loss medium, especially when the latter approach was implemented. To test the method in a real-world situation, a forensic GPR investigation was carried out to detect the body of a climber buried by a snow avalanche in the Karkas Mountains, Natanz, Iran. Both the TR and CTR methods successfully located the body, but the CTR method provided better definition of both the body and nearby reflectors related to the subsurface features like specific layers of snow. These results demonstrate that the CTR application is efficient at enhancing the spatial resolution of GPR radargrams and proves to have substantial promise as a GPR processing technique, although the method is relatively time consuming.