Wavelet-based position detection of buried pipes from GPR signals by use of angle information

Abstract

There are many metal pipes under paved roads in modern cities. For example, before installing a traffic signal post, underground mapping must take place to avoid hitting buried pipes. We use a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to resolve this issue. The goal of this research is to detect the positions of buried pipes with GPR signals automatically. In this paper, we propose a new detection method for locating buried pipes. The proposed method consists of two-dimensional Gabor wavelet transform (2D GWT), Delaunay triangulation (DT), particle filter (PF) and polynomial regression (PR). 2D GWT results represent angle information of GPR signals called B-scan. The GWT results are used as a likelihood function for the PF, and the particles ride on and follow the target signal in B-scan. The DT is used for initial particle generation of the PF, and the positions of pipes are detected by using the PR model for expectations of the PF. We show that most positions of pipes are found by using our method. However, the problem of inaccuracy of some detections needs to be enhanced for automatic detection.