Object Detection in Ground-Penetrating Radar Images Using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network and Image Set Preparation by Migration

Ground-penetrating radar allows the acquisition of many images for investigation of the pavement interior and shallow geological structures. Accordingly, an efficient methodology of detecting objects, such as pipes, reinforcing steel bars, and internal voids, in ground-penetrating radar images is an emerging technology. In this paper, we propose using a deep convolutional neural network to detect characteristic hyperbolic signatures from embedded objects. As a first step, we developed a migration-based method to collect many training data and created 53510 categorized images. We then examined the accuracy of the deep convolutional neural network in detecting the signatures. The accuracy of the classification was 0.945 (94.5%)–0.979 (97.9%) when using several thousands of training images and was much better than the accuracy of the conventional neural network approach. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of the deep convolutional neural network in detecting characteristic events in ground-penetrating radar images.