On the Limitations of Hyperbola Fitting for Estimating the Radius of Cylindrical Targets in Nondestructive Testing and Utility Detection

Hyperbola fitting is a mainstream interpretation technique used in ground penetrating radar (GPR) due to its simplicity and relatively low computational requirements. Conventional hyperbola based on the assumption that investigated medium homogeneous half-space, target an ideal reflector with zero radius. However, zero-radius can be easily removed by formulating problem more generalized way considers targets arbitrary size. Such approaches were recently literature, suggesting not only for estimating velocity of medium, but also radius subsurface cylinders, very challenging no conclusive solution this day. In paper, through series synthetic laboratory experiments, we demonstrate practical GPR survey, suitable simultaneously both size target, inherent non-uniqueness, making results unreliable sensitive noise.