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The essentiality of diffraction wavefront in structural mapping has been perceived, mainly because of its imaging potential for small structural variations and microscopic discontinuities. However, full extraction of ground penetrating radar (GPR) diffractions cannot be done perfectly even in theory as the faint components are typically masked by the more dominant reflections, resulting in a resolution loss of minutiae features. To address these issues, this letter develops a semblance-based coherence analysis framework for GPR diffraction wavefront reconstruction and full waveform inversion (FWI). Specifically, adaptive amplitude restoration is initially performed using the mean instant amplitude for analytic attenuation function derivation, which is followed by modified multitrace coherence stacking. Diffraction reconstruction is then executed with corrective factors determined by EM semblance attributes, while being assessed by quantified indices for reconstruction performance. The proposed framework is tested for validity and practicality with a synthetic model and laboratory experiment by comparing the conventional FWI and the diffraction driven FWI. The results present a high-resolution image of diffraction occurrences even with a homogeneous initial model, and more intuitively show a higher-resolution image even with a suboptimal initial model by diffraction-driven permittivity analysis. These encouraging results could potentially enable a hybrid inversion which benefits from reconstructing both GPR reflections and diffractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsurface mapping can be implemented by the migration imaging of ground penetrating radar (GPR) data. Finite difference (FD)-based migration can effectively achieve fast imaging in media with lateral heterogeneity. However, this migration inherently suffers from insufficient accuracy in determining the true morphology of any steep-obliquity interface. In this letter, we propose a new algorithm based on crossed differential operator (CDO) and reverse-time migration (RTM) strategy to refocus the reflections back into its precise location. By employing the implicit Crank–Nicolson scheme without any operator approximations, wave field can be extrapolated nearly along the characteristic directions of wave propagation based on the nonapproximate equations. We determined the potential of the algorithm using synthetic and field data. For synthetic data, we consider a multigeometry scenario, including different angle interfaces, different-sized spheres, and lateral heterogeneity. In particular, we focus on extrapolation accuracy, amplitude–frequency focusing ability, entropy analysis, and imaging errors. In the field data test, we found that the finer morphology of the steeper-obliquity interfaces can be determined, the interpretability and amount of discernible details can also be improved. This improvement makes CDO-based migration a very promising tool for the finer imaging of shallow subsurface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient and accurate simulation of ground penetrating radar (GPR) in the open region helps immensely in both grasping the features of echoes and facilitating the interpretation of real GPR data. Due to the limitation of the computer model, however, the strong artificial boundary reflections, especially the low-frequency propagating waves encountered at the late stage of simulation greatly affect the simulation accuracy of GPR. This paper presents an innovative optimized unsplit-field convolutional perfectly matched layer (UCPML) based on rotated staggered grid (RSG) scheme to truncate the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) lattices. Rather than obey the sharp variation based on an ${m}$ th-order polynomial, the optimized approach employs a novel optimized term and an adjustment factor to seek a gentle variation on optimal constitutive coefficients. This guarantees that the determination of optimal constitutive coefficients can be less influenced by the order of polynomial and especially, to improve the absorptive performance on low-frequency propagating waves. The calculating efficiency and accuracy of the RSG-FDTD scheme, as well as the absorbing performance of the optimized UCPML, are verified by two numerical examples. In particular, the analysis of the amplitude-frequency features of low-frequency clutters at steady state of the electromagnetic (EM) field and the corresponding global reflection error in the time–frequency domain is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a novel implementation of a rotated staggered grid (RSG) finite difference (FD) method based on the unsplit convolutional perfectly matched layer (UCPML). The method is carried out using rotated staggered FD operators and a general complex frequency shifted stretching factor. It can offer a number of advantages over the RSG with split convolutional perfectly matched layer (SCPML), such as improving computational efficiency, overcoming the numerical dispersions resulting from the high-frequency propagation and strong contrasts in material, and specifically absorbing the evanescent modes at grazing incidence. A half-space numerical example with a lossy medium attached demonstrates that large-scale spurious reflections and evanescent modes at grazing incidence are absorbed efficiently by the UCPML in RSG scheme. Meanwhile, the comparison of the reflection error between the proposed algorithm and traditional approaches [using time-dependent reflection error (TDRE) and frequency-dependent reflection error (FDRE)] suggests that the proposed algorithm of RSG provides a preferable improvement in absorbing low-frequency coda wave of evanescent modes, particularly in the lossy medium that possesses inhomogeneous discontinuities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]