MULTICHANNELGPR – A NEW MATLAB-TOOL FOR THE PROCESSING OF

GPR DATA

Tina Wunderlich

Presses universitaires de Rennes | « ArcheoSciences »

2021/1 n° 45-1 | pages 279 à 283

ISSN 1960-1360
ISBN 9782753585874
DOI 10.4000/archeosciences.10100
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 ArcheoSciences
Revue d'archéométrie 
45-1 | 2021
14th International Conference of Archaeological
Prospection

MultichannelGPR – A New MATLAB-Tool for the

Processing of GPR Data
Tina Wunderlich

Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/10100
DOI: 10.4000/archeosciences.10100
ISSN: 2104-3728

Publisher
Presses universitaires de Rennes

Printed version
Date of publication: 16 August 2021
Number of pages: 279-283
ISBN: 978-2-7535-8587-4
ISSN: 1960-1360

Electronic distribution by Cairn

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Electronic reference
Tina Wunderlich, “MultichannelGPR – A New MATLAB-Tool for the Processing of GPR Data”,
ArcheoSciences [Online], 45-1 | 2021, Online since 16 August 2021, connection on 30 August 2021.
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/10100 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/
archeosciences.10100

Article L.111-1 du Code de la propriété intellectuelle.

 MultichannelGPR – A New MATLAB-Tool
for the Processing of GPR Data
Tina Wunderlich a
Highlights:
• A MATLAB collection of scripts for processing of multichannel GPR data is provided. For easy access to the data during processing it is saved in mat-format.
• The program handles import, processing, binning and visualisation of GPR data.
Keywords: GPR, multichannel, processing, visualization, MATLAB.
INTRODUCTION
Several commercial programs are available for processing
of multichannel GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) data.
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Nevertheless, often the problem arises that the documen-
tation of the black-box program is incomplete and it is not
clear what the program is doing exactly, i.e. in a mathe-
matical sense. In addition, if processing steps apart from
the provided ones are necessary, it is often hard to export
the partly processed data to a data format that is readable
with another program. To overcome these problems a script-
based MATLAB program was developed, which imports
data from Malå or GSSI antennas, provides several proces-
sing and visualisation steps and enables the export as *.sgy-
files. For all internal calculations resultsthe well-documented
MATLAB *.mat-format is used. This provides the possibility
to include own processing or visualisation steps at any point
during the processing or to extract data easily, e.g. single
amplitude values. The GPR data can be acquired on arbi-
trary lines using a RTK-DGPS or a robotic total station, or
can be collected on a regular grid with coordinate assign-
ment by hand markers.
The MATLAB-code is available upon request from the
author.
a
Corresponding author, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Institute for Geosciences, Germany
ArcheoSciences, revue d’archéométrie, 45(1), 2021, p. 279-283
PROGRAM
The program MultichannelGPR is a collection of
MATLAB-scripts in a folder structure, which groups the
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scripts into different subfolders: Import and export, migra-
tion, plotting, processing, scripts for 2D or 3D processing,
velocity analysis and subfunctions that are used internally.
Originally it was developed for the processing of multichan-
nel GPR data from the Malå MIRA system, but also some
scripts for the import of GSSI data are provided converting
the data to the same *.mat-format as for the Malå data. It
is not meant to be a complete and closed program in which
the user can click on different buttons, and basic unders-
tanding of how to use MATLAB scripts is helpful. For the
advanced MATLAB user it will be easy to extract data from
different stages of the workflow.
The workflow for a standard Malå MIRA dataset will be
explained in the following and is also displayed in Figure 1.
First, the best flow of processing steps has to be determi-
ned, which is probably not the same for each data set (Fig. 1:
Testing). Two GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) are provided
for this task: One for the determination of time zero by choo-
sing one of four different methods of correction and one for
the order of other processing steps. Different processing steps
can be applied using different parameters until the result,
 280 Tina WUNDERLICH
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Figure 1. Architecture of Multichannel-GPR (blue ellipsoids are scripts, hexagons are datasets).

ArcheoSciences, revue d’archéométrie, 45(1), 2021, p. 279-283

 MultichannelGPR – A New MATLAB-Tool for the Processing of GPR Data
Figure 2. GUI for picking of layers with example profiles.
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which is produced preliminarily, is satisfactory. The used pro-
cessing steps and parameters can be saved in a *.txt-file, which
is then used for the processing of the complete data set.
The main script for multichannel Malå MIRA GPR data
is called Mala3D (Fig. 1: Processing). It reads the raw data,
sets coordinates and saves them as *.mat-files. This has the
advantage that the user can come back to this raw data and
start a different processing without the need to read all data
again. This is especially useful for larger data sets. Then, the
flow of processing steps determined before is read from the
*.txt-file and applied to the profile data.
The processed data is again saved in *.mat-format. Due
to the small profile spacing of Malå MIRA data of 8 cm the
radargrams can be combined to build a 3D data block using
binning onto a user-defined grid and avoiding interpolation
at this step. Depending on the computer used and on the
size of the data set, it has to be divided into several rectangles
with overlapping borders that can be merged again later.
The resulting 3D blocks can be used for different
purposes: One can further postprocess them by e.g. applying
3D migration, produce timeslices with various settings
(including interpolation) or extract new radargrams along
bins or along user-defined lines.
ArcheoSciences, revue d’archéométrie, 45(1), 2021, p. 279-283
281
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For visualisation of the data again several GUIs are avai-
lable (Fig. 1: Displaying). These can be used for displaying
of the binned 3D blocks and cutting along x-, y- or z-axis,
and to plot timeslices and radargrams. The timeslices can
also be exported as georeferenced *.png/*.pgw- files for
direct import into GIS (Geographical Information Systems).
For the interactive picking of events in radargrams another
GUI is provided (Fig. 2), where the user can pick different
layers in the data and export these as *.txt-files for further
processing or visualisation. The upper radargram is shown
for comparison, whereas the picking is performed in the
lower profile.
For velocity analysis using diffraction hyperbolae another
GUI is provided enabling the user to pick velocities inte-
ractively (Fig. 1: Velocity analysis). The resulting velocities
are saved as *.txt-file including position and traveltime for
further usage. A simple script is provided for the easy inter-
polation of these velocity picks into a 1D velocity model.
Apart from this standard workflow it is also possible (a) to
use single processing functions for own specialised applica-
tions that are not covered by the standard processing flow,
(b) to include own processing functions or (c) to extract data
between processing steps for analysis.
 282
Figure 3. Processed dataset in GUI for 3D view.
RESULTS
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An example dataset consisting of 50 profiles with 8 chan-
nels each was processed and the runtime recorded. For
this purpose a standard MacBook Pro with a 2.7 GHz
Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM and MATLAB R2020b was used.
The processing consisting of a) DC amplitude removal,
b) trace interpolation, c) time zero correction, d) bandpass
filtering, e) cutting of the range and f ) removal of a mean
trace, took 3-5 seconds for each of the approx. 20 m long
profiles with 8 channels. In total the importing of raw data,
processing and saving of profiles as well as binning onto a
22 × 32 m grid with 0.08 × 0.08 m cell size took less than
5 minutes using also parallelization with two workers. The
data can be displayed as timeslices and radargrams or in
3D view with slices along the bin edges (Fig. 3).
For a larger dataset with 182 profiles with 16 channels,
the processing took about 1 minute for each profile and
the binning about 1 hour. Due to memory limitations the
area had to be split into 20 rectangles with overlapping bor-
ders of 0.5 m that can be merged again for the creation of
timeslices. To decrease runtime, parallel computing is used
wherever possible, if the Parallel Computing Toolbox of
MATLAB is available.
AS, revue d’archéométrie, 45(1), 2021, p. 279-283
Tina WUNDERLICH
CONCLUSION
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MultichannelGPR is a flexible program for processing
of multichannel Malå MIRA GPR data allowing the easy
documentation of the data processing flow and thus repro-
ducibility of results through text-based setting files. The
source code (MATLAB) is open and can be inspected for the
underlying mathematical expressions. In addition the user
can include own processing or visualisation steps easily or
can extract data at every point of the processing flow. Several
GUIs are provided for visualisation and analysis of the data,
but own figures can be produced easily using MATLAB
standard functions on the data available in *.mat-format.
The program is continuously extended and user reporting
of bugs or desired functions is highly welcome.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank S. Bäumler for extensive testing,
bug reporting and help with writing of the documenta-
tion, E. Corradini and S. Fischer for testing of the program,
A. Fediuk, S. Hildebrandt and A. Lohrberg for help with the
*.sgy-format and H. Stümpel for help with the *.dzt-import.
 MultichannelGPR – A New MATLAB-Tool for the Processing of GPR Data 283

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Mississauga, Canada.
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mathworks.com/help/pdf_doc/matlab/matfile_format.pdf,
accessed on May 31, 2021.
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