Abstract
Usually, in ground-penetrating radar (GPR) datasets, the user defines the limits between the useful signal and the noise through standard filtering to isolate the effective signal as much as possible. However, there are true reflections that mask the coherent reflectors that can be considered noise. In archaeological sites these clutter reflections are caused by scattering with origin in subsurface elements (e.g., isolated masonry, ceramic objects, and archaeological collapses). Its elimination is difficult because the wavelet parameters similar to coherent reflections and there is a risk of creating artefacts. In this study, a procedure to filter the clutter reflection noise (CRN) from GPR datasets is presented. The CRN filter is a singular value decomposition-based method (SVD), applied in the 2D spectral domain. This CRN filtering was tested in a dataset obtained from a controlled laboratory environment, to establish a mathematical control of this algorithm. Additionally, it has been applied in a 3D-GPR dataset acquired in the Roman villa of Horta da Torre (Fronteira, Portugal), which is an uncontrolled environment. The results show an increase in the quality of archaeological GPR planimetry that was verified via archaeological excavation.
Highlights
The procedure consists the identification ofa clutter reflection noisewas under controlled procedure consists of the identification of clutter reflection noise under controlled condiconditions using data obtained in a laboratory model
The approach was applied to a 3D-ground-penetrating radar (GPR) field data, obtained with a 400 MHz antenna in an archaeological site. This was later excavated exposing walls and floors, which was crucial to confirm the correspondence with the reflections alignments visible in the GPR results and to verify that the applied filtering approach is effective in removing the background noise while maintaining only the information corresponding to those structures
This study proposes a new methodology to perform clutter reflection noise (CRN)
Summary
The main feature in applied geophysics for subsurface exploration is the use of remote sensing techniques. This feature becomes more important in archaeological environments as a previous stage to excavations and can play an important role in site delimitation, being able to make heritage protection endeavors more effective. The range and resolution are functions of the antenna frequency used, which typically varies between 200 MHz and 1.6 GHz in archaeological environment [2] This method allows us to determine the spatial distribution of structures buried in the ground, such as walls, ditches, floors, cavities, and even water levels. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 2005 flow [3] operate well when the datasets have good-medium quality, but specific routines are required for the datasets with low signal/noise ratio
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