  Compared with traditional empirical mode decomposition (EMD) methods,
variational mode decomposition (VMD) has strong theoretical foundation and high
operational efficiency. The VMD method is introduced to ground penetrating
radar (GPR) signal processing. The characteristics of GPR signals validate the
method of signal de-noising based on the VMD principle. The validity and
accuracy of the method are further verified via Ricker wavelet and forward
model GPR de-noising experiments. The method of VMD is evaluated in comparison
with traditional wavelet transform (WT) and EEMD (ensemble EMD) methods. The
method is subsequently used to analyze a GPR signal from a practical
engineering case. The results show that the method can effectively remove the
noise in the GPR data, and can obtain high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) even
under strong background noise.
