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ICRLP-2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

Application of ground-penetrating radar method to detect

underground pipes in PAIR BATAN utility area

Rizka Amelia1, Adika Bagaskara1, Sigit Budi Santoso2, Abdurrahman Wafi3,

Nugroho Syarif Setiawan3 and Mariyanto Mariyanto1, *
1
Department of Geophysical Engineering, Faculty of Civil Planning and Geo
Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya 60111, Indonesia
2
Pusat Aplikasi Isotop dan Radiasi (PAIR) BATAN, Jakarta 12630, Indonesia
3
PT. Andalan Tunas Mandiri, Jakarta 13940, Indonesia

*mariyanto@geofisika.its.ac.id

Abstract. Underground pipeline systems dominate today's urban area landscape. This buried
pipeline system will continuously develop along with the utility change. The planning for
underground pipelines should be done to avoid mistakes in the pipeline path. Thus, mapping for
the underground pipeline is necessary to obtain a database for any upcoming construction
development. This research purpose is to detect underground pipelines around utility areas using
the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) method. A frequency of 300 MHz was used to acquire GPR
data from 6 lines, with a total length of 22.6m for each line and 0.5m for the line spacing. A
sequence of processing stages of the GPR data was conducted using matGPR, a MATLAB-based
program. Interpretable GPR profiles from each measurement line are obtained after adjusting
signal position, removing DC, Dewow, mean filter, gaining, removing global background, and
KL-filter. The results show an obvious amplitude reflection anomaly. Each line has similar
detected underground pipes from its vertical axis, travel time, and horizontal distance. Clearly,
all lines show an obvious contrast anomaly located at the 2.5 m horizontal distance. This most
striking anomaly is interpreted as a water tunnel. In comparison, the other five parabolic-shaped
anomalies were identified as underground pipes.

1. Introduction
Today, most utilities located in an urban area prefer the underground pipeline system to give better
landscape sight [1]. This buried pipeline system will continuously develop as well as the utilities change.
The arrangement of underground pipelines needs to be done properly to avoid errors in the pipeline path.
According to that, mapping for the underground pipeline is necessary to obtain a database for any
upcoming construction development. Certainly, in this underground mapping, the utility owner does not
want to demolish the construction built. Therefore, it takes a non-destructive method that can depict the
subsurface conditions.
One of the widely used non-destructive methods for underground pipeline detection is Ground
Penetrating Radar (GPR). Besides, GPR produces high-resolution imagery, is cheap, and is fast in
acquiring data [1]. The principle of this method is utilizing the reflection of emitted high-frequency
(ranging between 1 MHz to 1000 MHz [2]) electromagnetic waves from the antennas to the subsurface.
A reflection can occur if there are any discontinuity or change in the electromagnetic characteristic of
the subsurface, which will result in a different pattern of GPR profile [3]. More specific underground

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ICRLP-2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

pipe identification can be done based on its material, whether the pipe is made of iron or PVC material.
The iron pipe will show an obvious reflection amplitude in the GPR profile due to its high dielectric
constant difference from the surrounding subsurface medium [4]. Previous studies show that ground-
penetrating radar methods have been implemented to identify buried human bodies [5] and water
seepage in lake bodies [6]. This present study performs GPR in detecting underground pipelines around
the PAIR-BATAN area to be used as a mapping reference for further utility development.

2. Methodology
2.1. Data Acquisition
The raw data for this study is obtained through GPR measurement, which is conducted around the PAIR-
BATAN area. The instrument used is AKULA A9000+ Antenna GCB3070. Figure 1a shows us that this
GPR acquisition was done on the road crossing the estimated underground pipeline location beneath it.
Six acquisition lines (Line 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) are arranged to have 22.6 m length and 0.5 m space for
each line (see Figure 1b). A frequency of 300 MHz was used in acquiring GPR data at each line.

(a) (b)
Figure 1. GPR data acquisition (a) measurement location (b) acquisition line design.
2.2. Data Processing
The raw GPR data obtained was processed by matGPR, a MATLAB-based two-layered software system
[7]. This program allows us to apply various filters and adjustments to improve the target identification
and interpretation through processed GPR profiles [8]. Figure 2 shows us the GPR data processing
sequence of this study. The explanation for each stage is in the next paragraph.

Figure 2. Flowchart of this study.

Adjust Signal Position is aimed to adjust the traces vertically to be positioned to 'time-zero.' It is a
point where the radar pulse first enters the subsurface. The propagation of signal waves from the main
unit to the surface takes a certain time so that it produces traces showing the time that should not be
measured and does not describe the depth. This process is done by placing the first negative peak from
a trace to its actual position so that delayed time is deleted [8,9]. The DC components can distort so that
they need to be removed by Remove DC [8]. Then, Dewow is applied to remove very-low-frequency
components [8] that distorts the whole traces using zero-phase high pass filtering [7]. Next step, Mean
Filter is performed to obtain a smoother image by reducing its pixels intensity variation to decrease the
noise [9]. After that, an empirical gain function is applied in this process [7]. Each trace's amplitudes

2
ICRLP-2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

are strengthened by performing Inverse Amplitude Decay, while the lateral amplitude variations are
managed the same [10]. The next step is to remove the global background, which appears as low-
frequency horizontal coherent energy [11]. Then, Karhunen-Loeve (KL) Filter is used to reduce the
lateral noise by using the Karhunen-Loeve transformation with the eigenvector parameter [11].

3. Results
Each profile of the processing stage is provided below. Figure 3 shows the raw data of Line 1 that is
obtained through acquisition. Figure 4 – 10 shows the difference of each profile after a specific
filter/adjustment is applied. The change from raw data profile (Figure 3) to Adjust Signal Position
(Figure 4) is that all the traces move up due to time-zero picked. It is clearly seen in the profile of 2ns
at 0 meters between the two profiles (Figure 3 and Figure 4), where the ‘white line’ anomaly position in
Figure 4 is higher. Smoother profile from Remove DC (Figure 5) and Dewow (Figure 6) profile cannot
be seen clearly, because these processes only result in the loss of low-frequency noise. As in Figure 7,
after Mean Filter is applied, it results in a smoother GPR profile with smaller pixels. Figure 8 shows a
clear difference in gained amplitude throughout the entire time window compared to the previous GPR
profile. Also, there is an obvious difference between Figure 8 and 9. It can be seen that Remove Global
Background makes the low-frequency horizontal coherent energy disappear. Finally, the last profile of
each line is used to do an interpretation.

Figure 3. Raw data of Line 1

Figure 4. Result of Adjust Signal Position

Figure 5. Result of Remove DC

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ICRLP-2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

Figure 6. Result of Dewow

Figure 7. Result of Mean Filter

Figure 8. Result of Inverse Amplitude Decay

Figure 9. Result of Remove Global Background

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ICRLP-2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

Figure 10. Result of KL Filter

4. Discussion
After a series of processing of the GPR data as explained in section 2.2 is carried out, an interpretable
GPR profile is obtained. Figure 11(a) – 11(f) shows the interpretation of the GPR profile of each
measurement line. The vertical axis of these profiles stands as the travel time in nanoseconds unit, while
the horizontal axis presents the length of the measurement line in meters. As can be seen in these figures,
the identified anomaly looks like a parabolic shape (indicated by red parabolic line). This shape appears
the same in several other GPR studies used to identify underground pipelines [1,4,12,13]. Aside from
that, we can observe that the anomaly of each line has a similar location of its horizontal distance. There
are five detected underground pipes in Line 1, 2, and 3 (Figure 11a – c). All parabolic shapes in these
lines are clear enough to be identified as an anomaly. One anomaly is indicated by the red rectangle and
located around 2.5m horizontal distance, providing a very obvious contrast of amplitude reflection that
can be interpreted as a water tunnel. The georadar method is different from other electromagnetic
methods such as magnetotellurics. The georadar method is good for mapping the shallow subsurface
while the magnetotelluric method is good for mapping the deep subsurface [14].
In Line 1, the underground pipes are first detected through the most upper part of the parabolic shape
at around travel time range 1 – 2 ns. These underground pipes in Line 1 are identified at the 4 – 13 m
horizontal distance. In Line 2, Line 3, and Line 4, the underground pipes are first detected at the same
travel time range as Line 1. While, in Line 5 and Line 6, underground pipes were detected in the travel
time range 1 - 3 ns. The horizontal distance of the underground pipes of Line 2 – Line 6 is at the same
range as the underground pipes in Line 1, which is 1 – 13 m. However, one anomaly from Line 4, Line
5, and Line 6 cannot be clearly identified as underground pipe due to its blurry parabolic shape.
Therefore, only four underground pipes are identified in Line 4 and three in Line 5 and 6.

(a) (b)

5
ICRLP-2021 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

(c) (d)

(e) (f)
Figure 11. GPR profile interpretation of (a) Line 1, (b) Line 2, (c) Line 3, (d) Line 4, (e) Line 5, and
(f) Line 6

5. Conclusion
The application of the GPR method with a frequency of 300 MHz to detect underground pipes in the
PAIR-BATAN utility area resulted in very clear parabolic shape anomalies. Five underground pipes and
a water tunnel were identified from the measurement lines by parabolic shape anomaly and obvious
contrast of amplitude reflection, respectively. The results of this study can then be continued as a
reference for subsurface mapping for further utility development purposes of the PAIR-BATAN area.

Acknowledgements
We are deeply thankful for this GPR data acquisition project that PT Andalan Tunas Mandiri has done.
We also would like to thank Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember for giving us a legitimate MATLAB
program.

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Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2309 (2022) 012029 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2309/1/012029

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