Evaluation of methods for ground bounce removal in GPR utility mapping

Methods for removal of ground bounce in general and for subsurface utility mapping in particular are considered in this paper. The term ground bounce is often used for the effect due to the radar wave being reflected at both the air-ground interface and at the non-ideal antenna. Both mean, median, moving median and Principal Component Analysis techniques have been evaluated on GPR data sets collected with an elevated bow-tie array antenna. Moving median filter ground bounce removal and an online and realtime PCA based method have been implemented and tested as well. The Principal Component Analysis technique has been shown to have superior performance.