Louvain Ground-Penetrating Radar Research Centre

Radar electromagnetic modeling

Full-wave radar modeling and inversion for non-destructive characterization of soils and materials.

Digital soil mapping

Mapping of the soil hydrogeophysical properties to support precision agriculture and environmental research.

Drone applications

Aerial shooting, photogrammetry and drone-borne ground-penetrating radar soil mapping.

Hydrogeophysics

Integrated hydrogeophysical inverse modeling to estimate the soil hydraulic properties.

GPRLouvain

Non-destructive testing

Inspection of roads, tree trunks and other materials using ground-penetrating radar (GPR).

Research expertise

The Ground-Penetrating Radar Research Centre of the Earth and Life Institute at UCLouvain integrates cutting-edge electromagnetic modeling and hydrogeophysics in both fundamental and applied research projects to enhance non-destructive imaging and characterization of subsurface and material properties using ultra wideband ground-penetrating radar (GPR). Initiated in 2000, this longstanding research has in particular been supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS).

Radar modeling

Accurate modeling of the radar-antenna-medium system is essential in full-wave inversion schemes to estimate the physical properties of a medium. For the particular case of far-field GPR with applications to planar layered media, we introduced a closed-form, frequency-domain, radar equation that simultaneously accounts for all antenna effects through frequency-dependent global reflection and transmission coefficients and wave propagation in 3-D layered media through exact Green’s functions (Lambot et al., 2004). Research has been in particular carried out in close collaboration with Delft University of Technology (Prof. Evert Slob) and Forschungszentrum Jülich (Prof. Harry Vereecken). The approach has been generalized to near-field conditions (Lambot and André, 2014), as prevalent in GPR applications.

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Meet Our Research Group

Sébastien Lambot
Extraordinary Professor, FNRS Research Director

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR), hydrogeophysics, electromagnetic modelling and inversion, remote sensing, and precision agriculture applications.

Jiarong Ma
Doctoral Candidate

Calibration of GNSS-R satellite products for soil moisture using drone-borne GPR (EU ITN GLITTER project).

Yulin Pan
Doctoral Candidate

Monitoring of peatlands using satellite remote sensing (BELSPO EO4PEAT project). Co-supervision with Prof. Frieke Van Coillie (UGent). Joint PhD UCLouvain-UGent.

Merlin Mareschal
Doctoral Candidate

Water and Vegetation Tower Radar Experiments for Improved Climate Monitoring (BELSPO WAVETRAX project).

Cristina Acevedo
Doctoral Candidate

Microgesture recognition using radar (COSMIC). Co-supervision with Prof. Jean Vanderdonckt.

Camilo Hurtado Erasso
Doctoral Candidate

Low-Frequency SONAR for Underwater Object Detection. Co-supervision with Prof. Xavier Neyt. Joint PhD with the Royal Military Academy.

Alexis Deleu
Doctoral Candidate

Multi-Signature Underwater MineSweeping. Co-supervision with Prof. Xavier Neyt. Joint PhD with the Royal Military Academy.

Guillaume Van Issum
Doctoral Candidate

Microgesture sensing for natural interaction (COSMIC). Co-supervision with Prof. Jean Vanderdonckt.

Edoardo Navarra
Visiting Doctoral Candidate

Calibration and drone-scale experiments (EU ITN GLITTER project). From Delft University of Technology (TUDelft). Co-supervision with Prof. Evert Slob.

Camille Herlent
Visiting Doctoral Candidate

Detecting water leaks in underground pipe networks using electromagnetic methods. From G2Elab (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP), in collaboration with the ENDSUM team at Cerema.

Former team members

Lawanya Awasthi
Visiting Doctoral Candidate (2026) from the University of Luxembourg. EU ITN GLITTER project.

Maud Henrion
Doctoral Candidate (2021–2026), UCLouvain. Co-supervised with Prof. Kristof Van Oost. PhD awarded in 2026.

Zihan Xu
Visiting Doctoral Candidate from Harbin Institute of Technology (China), 2023-2024. Co-supervision with Prof. Fulin Su. PhD awarded in 2025.

Adil Thami
Doctoral Candidate (2022-2025). Co-supervision with Prof. Kristof Van Oost.

Yuan Li
Invited Professor from Beijing Information Science and Technology University (China).

Arthur Sluyters
Doctoral Candidate (2021–2024), UCLouvain. Co-supervised with Prof. Jean Vanderdonckt. PhD awarded in 2024.

Kaijun Wu
Doctoral Candidate and Postdoctoral Researcher (2018–2024), UCLouvain. PhD awarded in 2022.

Triven Koganti
Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher from Aarhus University (Denmark), 2023.

Li Zeng
Visiting Doctoral Candidate from Tongji University (China) (2022–2023). PhD awarded in 2024.

Giacomo Crucil
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2017–2022), co-supervised with Prof. Kristof Van Oost. PhD awarded in 2024.

Lan Gao
Visiting Doctoral Candidate from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) (2019–2020). PhD awarded in 2021.

Chiara Dachena
Visiting Doctoral Candidate from University of Genoa (Italy) (2019). PhD awarded in 2022.

Jean-Baptiste Got
Doctoral Candidate and Teaching Assistant at UCLouvain (2013–2019), co-supervised with Prof. Charles Bielders. PhD awarded in 2019.

Albéric De Coster
Doctoral Candidate and Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLouvain (2013–2019). PhD awarded in 2017.

Jana Jezova
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2014–2018). PhD awarded in 2018.

Gabriela A. Rodriguez
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2016–2017).

Marjana Zajc
Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLouvain (2016–2017).

Laurence Mertens
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2012-2015).

Frédéric André
Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLouvain (2009-2015).

Nicolas Mourmeaux
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2012-2014).

Anh Phuong Tran
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2010–2014). PhD awarded in 2014.

Mahmoudzadeh Ardekani
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2010–2014). PhD awarded in 2014.

François Jonard
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain and Forschungszentrum Jülich – Agrosphere Institute (IBG-3) (2008–2012). PhD awarded in 2012.

Davood Moghadas
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain and Forschungszentrum Jülich – Agrosphere Institute (IBG-3) (2008–2011). PhD awarded in 2011.

Julien Minet
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain (2007–2011). PhD awarded in 2011.

Claudio Patriarca
Visiting Doctoral Candidate from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) (2009), co-supervised with Prof. Evert Slob. PhD awarded in 2013.

Khan Zaib Jadoon
Doctoral Candidate at UCLouvain and Forschungszentrum Jülich – Agrosphere Institute (IBG-3) (2007–2010). PhD awarded in 2010.

Our Current Projects

GLITTER

GNSS-R Satellite Earth Observation (EU ITN)

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WAVETRAX

Climate impacts on crop losses: Using satellite data to foster food security (BELSPO)

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EO4PEAT

EO for Understanding and Monitoring Changing Conditions in Tropical Peatlands (BELSPO)

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CityCore Explorer

Back-projection, full-wave inversion and AI

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LandSense

Critical Zone Research

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DuraTechFarm

Plus-value économique et environnementale du Smart Farming au sein d’une exploitation agricole wallonne.

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INGENIOUS

Gesture recognition using wideband radar.

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COSMIC

Continuous microgesture acquisition and sensing for natural interaction.

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Former Projects

RAPAS
Close range aerial sensing of soils for improved remote sensing products.

SENSROAD
Non-destructive road inspection using full-wave inversion of ultra wideband radar data.

SENSWOOD
Non-destructive sensing of tree trunk internal structures and wood properties using microwave radar imaging and full-wave inversion.

EU COST ACTION TU1208
Civil Engineering Applications of Ground Penetrating Radar.

News
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News
IUI 2022 Best Paper Award
Arthur Sluyters

"Hand Gesture Recognition for an Off-the-Shelf Radar by Electromagnetic Modeling and Inversion" by Arthur Sluyters, Sébastien Lambot and Jean Vanderdonckt
 

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Co-organization of IGARSS 2021
Sébastien Lambot

Co-financial chair of IGARSS 2021.
 
 

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CONT ACT

Thank you for your interest in GPRLouvain

GPRLouvain
Earth and Life Institute

Address

UCLouvain
Croix du Sud 2, box L7.05.02
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium

Phone

Direct: +32 10 47 37 11
Secretariat: +32 10 47 37 84

Email