GPR background removal using a directional total variation minimisation approach

Abstract

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a leading geophysical subsurface imaging tool for various purposes. This efficiency, however, is compromised by the interference of different types of noise. Background noise (clutter) is one of the nagging types of noise that undermines the high-resolution imaging capabilities of GPR. This study presents the experience of applying a directional total variation minimisation (DTVM) filter to attenuate clutter in GPR data. The application of DTVM to both synthetic and field GPR data proves its great capability to attenuate clutter without affecting the features of interest of a GPR section. The results also show that the proposed DTVM method affords superior image quality than both the most commonly used and the most recently published background removal techniques.