Adaptive Filtering Processing for Target Signature Enhancement in Monostatic Borehole Radar Data

Abstract

In B-scan data measured by a pulse-type monostatic borehole radar, target signatures are seriously obscured by two clutters that differ in orientation and intensity. The primary clutter appears as a nearly constant time delay, which is caused by internal ringing between antenna and transceiver in the radar system. The secondary clutter occurs as an oblique time delay due to the guided borehole wave along the logging cable of the radar antenna. This issue led us to perform adaptive filtering processing for orientation-based clutter removal. This letter describes adaptive filtering processing consisting of a combination of edge detection, data rotation, and eigenimage filtering. We show that the hyperbolic signatures of a dormant air-filled tunnel target can be more distinctly enhanced by applying the proposed approach to the B-scan data, which are measured in a well-suited test site for underground tunnel detection.