Numerical Simulation of Underground Pipeline Detection Based on Ground Penetrating Radar with Array Antenna

Abstract:

Underground pipelines are regarded as urban lifeline projects, however, due to many practical reasons, there are problems in the surveying and mapping data of underground pipelines that are not in line with the status quo. It is necessary to conduct more accurate detection of underground pipelines. With the advancement of materials science, the metal pipelines that have been continuously used in the past have been gradually replaced by non-metallic pipelines. Therefore, some traditional detection methods are not suitable anymore. Ground Penetrating Radar with bi-static mode is also helpless for deep buried non-metallic pipelines.. Here we used GPRMax3D software to construct a 3D model of the underground pipeline, and carried out numerical simulations of GPR with array antenna. By performing NMO correction and horizontal stack processing on the collected array antenna radar data, the reflected wave information of the underground pipeline is effectively enhanced. In addition, by changing the model geometry and electrical parameters, we explored the effect of the array antenna in detecting underground pipelines under different conditions. Considering the difference between the homogeneous medium model and the reality, we also tried to explore the influence of random soil medium on the detection results of the array antenna. In essence, there is no difference between an array antenna and a bi-static antenna : the center frequency of the antenna and the conductivity of the medium are still the main factors that limit the detection depth. However, compared with a bi-static antenna, the advantage of GPR with an array antenna is the large increase in the amount of data obtained from underground media. It can simultaneously collect data with different spacing between transmission and receiver, which lays a foundation for more effective data processing methods in the future.