A semi-automatic processing and visualisation tool for ground-penetrating radar pavement thickness data

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a recommendable and cost-effective non-destructive technique for measuring the thickness of pavement layers because data acquisition can take place at normal traffic speeds. On the other hand, the large amount of data collected is difficult to process. Given that processing is conducted by qualified practitioners, it is a key to obtain software tools that allow for accurate thickness measurements and fast processing times. This paper presents a new semi-automatic program for the processing and visualisation of GPR data to measure pavement thicknesses. The results showed that an optimisation in the execution time allowed for a near-immediate response in data processing even when dealing with large data sets. Different data set lengths, ranging from 100 m to 20 km, were analysed, and the processing times required to complete the entire process were examined taking into account three different hardware configurations (i3, i5 and i7 processors). In all cases, the processing times did not exceed 30 s. An additional test was performed to evaluate the reproducibility of the algorithm on a well-defined and preconditioned concrete asphalt course. Furthermore, the visualisation application allows for the georeferencing of the field GPR data by using additional GPS data. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.