Experimental investigation of different soil types for buried object imaging using impulse GPR

Performance of electromagnetic sensors which are used to detect buried objects, is varied according to properties of soil. Most common sensor pair is EMI (Electromagnetic Induction) and GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) for buried object detection systems. Besides the surface roughness and overlying vegetation, electrical conductivity (σ, (S/m)), electric permittivity (ε, (F/m)), and magnetic susceptibility affects the detection performance of sensors. The electromagnetic properties of soil cause wave attenuation and change reflection coefficient of electromagnetic wave reflected from soil surface. For this reason, different soil types create various effects on sensor data, therefore performance of GPR and EMI sensors may decrease. Moreover, burial depth estimation can be performed if the soil properties are known exactly. This paper contains the effects of different soil types on impulse ground penetrating radar data, experimentally.