Research on Real-Time Automatic Picking of Ground-Penetrating Radar Image Features by Using Machine Learning

Hard foreign objects such as bricks, wood, metal materials, and plastics in orchard soil can affect the operational safety of garden machinery. Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) is widely used for the detection of hard foreign objects in soil due to its advantages of non-destructive detection (NDT), easy portability, and high efficiency. At present, the degree of automatic identification applied in soil-oriented foreign object detection based on GPR falls short of the industry’s expectations. To further enhance the accuracy and efficiency of soil-oriented foreign object detection, we combined GPR and intelligent technology to conduct research on three aspects: acquiring real-time GPR images, using the YOLOv5 algorithm for real-time target detection and the coordinate positioning of GPR images, and the construction of a detection system based on ground-penetrating radar and the YOLOv5 algorithm that automatically detects target characteristic curves in ground-penetrating radar images. In addition, taking five groups of test results of detecting different diameters of rebar inside the soil as an example, the obtained average error of detecting the depth of rebar using the detection system is within 0.02 m, and the error of detecting rebar along the measuring line direction from the location of the starting point of GPR detection is within 0.08 m. The experimental results show that the detection system is important for identifying and positioning foreign objects inside the soil.