Detection of buried human bodies using ground-penetrating radar method

Abstract

Indonesia is a country that often experiences natural disasters as it is a meeting point of several tectonic plates. When a natural disaster occurs, most of the time the evacuation team having some trouble finding the buried victims underground. The Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) method is one of the solutions for this problem. GPR or also called georadar is a geophysical method that is used to investigate conditions under the earth’s surface using electromagnetic waves. This study aims to detect buried human bodies underground using the GPR method to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of natural disaster victims by doing a simulation measurement. It took place in one of the public cemeteries in Jakarta, Indonesia passing two graves with corpses buried around three years before the survey. GPR measurements were conducted using Geoscanners AKULA A9000+ Antenna GCB3070 to detect the buried human bodies underground. The GPR data then processed using MATLAB based program called matGPR. A series of adjustments and filters such as signal position adjustment, remove DC, mean filter, inverse amplitude decay, remove global background, and Karhunen-Loeve (KL) filter have been applied to the data. The result of data processing shows amplitude contrasts which are suspected to be the buried corpses. Further research can be conducted to investigate the buried victims from landslides, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.