The clutter that affects a GPR can be defined as those signals that are unrelated to the target scattering characteristics but occur in the same sample time window and have similar spectral characteristics to the target wavelet.
This is a somewhat different definition from conventional radar clutter and should be borne in mind when considering conventional methods of clutter filtering such as MTI, which would be inappropriate to apply to ground penetrating radar data.
Clutter can be caused by breakthrough between the transmit and receive antennas as well as multiple reflections between the antenna and the ground surface.
Clutter will vary according to the type of antenna configuration, and the parallel planar dipole
arrangement is one where the stability of the level of breakthrough is most constant.
Typically a maximum level of —40 dB to —50 dB is encountered