Theoretical analysis of electromagnetic property estimation in the subsurface using dielectric relaxation in electromagnetic waves reflection

Abstract

Ground Penetrating Rader (GPR) is a nondestructive testing method to visualize shallow subsurface using reflection of down-going electromagnetic (EM) waves generated on the surface. Travel-time of reflection signals tells us the position and the depth of objects in the subsurface. Since we can survey wide area in an expeditious way, GPR has been widely used in many engineering fields. On the other hand, great demand for quantitative estimations, i.e. physical properties of buried targets, has been increasing in recent years. Since it is difficult for conventional GPR survey to estimate physical properties in the subsurface, a novel approach for investigating them has been waited for. In this study, we propose a methodology for estimating physical properties in the subsurface only using reflection of EM waves. Since the estimated values by our method show good agreement with the true values, the proposed method can tell us not only the position and depth of the targets but also physical properties of them.