Inverse modeling of GPR signal for estimating soil water content

Lambot, Sébastien [UCL] van den Bosch, I. Slob, E.C. Stockbroeckx, Benoît [UCL] Scheers, B. Vanclooster, Marnik [UCL]

For a large variety of environmental and agricultural applications, the use of ground penetrating radar (GPR) for identifying soil water content is a matter of concern. However, the current state of technology still needs improvements and new developments. Research has focused on the development of an integrated inverse modeling approach including GPR design, GPR signal forward modeling, and GPR signal inversion to estimate simultaneously the depth dependent dielectric constant and electrical conductivity of the shallow subsurface. We propose to use as radar system a stepped frequency continuous wave radar with an ultrawide band dielectric filled TEM horn antenna used in monostatic mode. This configuration is appropriate for real time mapping and allows for a more realistic forward modeling of the radar-antenna-soil system. Forward modeling was based on the exact solution of Maxwell's equations and inversion was formulated by the classical least square problem. Given the inherent complex topography of the objective functions to optimize in electromagnetic inversion problems, we used for the inversion the recently developed global multilevel coordinate search algorithm that we combine sequentially with the local Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm. We applied the method in laboratory conditions on tank filled with sand subject to different water content levels considering a homogeneous water profile. The inverse estimation of the soil dielectric constant was remarkably well in accordance with each water content level and the corresponding theoretical values of the dielectric constant for the sand. Comparison of GPR measurements with estimations from time domain reflectometry (TDR) were also well in close agreement.