Autonomous Land Surveying Using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)

Abstract

Ground Penetrating Radar has long been the preferred geophysical method to im- age the subsurface. The applications of its use extend to academic, archaeological, military and recently even autonomous vehicle navigation purposes. This method of imaging the subsurface has proven effective and extremely useful, yet has been suffering from a lack of efficiency in its practical application. This report presents the design of a robot capable of automating the process of GPR land surveying in order to increase efficiency and expedite the process by reducing the dependency on human operation. The design relies on a Raspberry Pi 4b as the brain controlling its operation with an incremental rotary (quadrature) encoder and a triple-axis ac- celerometer/magnetometer for navigation. The software was written using python and tested on a manufactured prototype to prove its functionality.