Ground penetrating radar services
AMG Technologies surveys roads, motorways, railways, airfields, bridges and other structures with ground penetrating radar, and delivers the diagnosis: what lies under the surface, where it is weak, and what to do first.
Independent of the equipment manufacturer. We choose the GPR system that fits your needs, GSSI, Kontur (formerly 3D-Radar) or another manufacturer: horn antennas at traffic speed for long networks, three-dimensional arrays where the full width of the structure matters. Our own software, AMG Software, reads the data and delivers the result in AMG Viewer Edition, on your computer.
What you receive: the maps of every layer and every finding, the report, and the survey itself in our own .amgp format, made for huge data sets, which opens in AMG Viewer Edition on an ordinary laptop, no workstation needed, with the georeferenced photographs and the structure analysis; one year of the Viewer is included. Every result exports to Excel, CSV, DXF, GeoJSON, LandXML, Shapefile and KMZ for your GIS and CAD.
Every survey is quoted for your asset and for what you need to know. We reply within one working day.
1 Digital twin modelling
We build a high-resolution replica of the pavement or track subsurface, layer by layer along the whole section. You receive the layer model in the Viewer and the maps of thickness and condition. Ask for it before a rehabilitation design, or as the baseline of a monitoring programme.
2 Ground penetrating radar surveys
Surveys at traffic speed with the GPR system chosen and configured for what you need to know, GSSI, Kontur or another manufacturer, with no impact on traffic or on the structure. Among the analyses:
-
High-accuracy continuous structural thickness measurements
-
High-resolution subsurface digital twin
-
3D moisture mapping
-
Delamination and void detection
-
Crack depth assessment
You receive the maps, the report and the survey in AMG Viewer Edition.
Water is one of the two fundamental causes of road wear, and a pavement that has lost its watertightness deteriorates slowly at first, then fast (Cour des comptes, 2022): the moisture map shows where it is before the surface does.
3 Proactive monitoring and diagnostics
We find deterioration before it shows at the surface, so that you act before failure: moisture where it should not be, voids, delamination, cracks etc. You receive the findings on the map with their depths, ranked, and a follow-up plan. Ask for it on a network you manage year after year: surveyed year after year, it tells you where to spend and where to wait, maintenance follows the condition, not the calendar, and the works are planned, not forced. Finland’s Ministry of Transport and France’s Cour des comptes say the same of their own networks: works done at the right time and in the right place cost less and spare far heavier repairs later (2025, 2022). The figures and the sources.
4 Airfield pavements: structure, ACR-PCR and deflection testing inputs
A PCR is only as good as the structure it is computed on: the thickness of every layer, section by section. Design records rarely match the pavement as it is today, after years of overlays and repairs that nobody wrote down. Our GPR survey of the whole airfield gives the georeferenced thickness of each layer along the runway, the taxiways and the aprons, auto-calibrated, and brings your pavement database back to the structure that is actually there.
The same thicknesses are the input that HWD and FWD back-calculation needs to give sound layer moduli, and the input of the PCR under ICAO’s ACR-PCR method (Doc 9157 Part 3, 2022, applicable since 28 November 2024). You receive the structure maps, the updated database, the thickness inputs for your deflection testing and the PCR assessment. At the acceptance of works we also check what was built against what was designed.
5 Civil engineering structures
Bridge decks, concrete structures and slabs: reinforcement, concrete cover, voids under slabs, delamination and moisture in the deck, before coring or works. France alone has between 200,000 and 250,000 road bridges, many built after the Second World War for a life of about a hundred years (Cour des comptes, 2022).
A 3D-Radar survey: the map, the radargram, the time slice and the structure analysis.
How a survey runs
1. Scope: a call, a map of the sections, a quotation within one working day.
2. Survey: vehicle-mounted GPR at traffic speed, no closure; a three-dimensional array where the full width of the structure matters.
3. Analysis: layer thicknesses, moisture, voids, cracks; calibration cores only where needed.
4. Delivery: the report, the maps, the survey in AMG Viewer Edition with the findings, and a review meeting.
Standards and benchmark: our surveys follow ASTM D4748 for layer thickness, D6087 for bridge decks and D6432 for GPR surveys; in the US SHRP programme, radar layer thicknesses agreed with cores to within 5 percent with a single calibration core per site (SHRP-P-397, 1994).
Our software
AMG Software is the processing chain we use in house. Our founder built it on twenty years of GPR research, with the team, our partners and our clients, around client needs rather than around radar expertise: structural deficiencies, pavement distress and asset impairment, the location of moisture, voids and cracks, the thickness of every layer. It reads GSSI and Kontur data today and takes in other manufacturers’ formats as our clients bring them. It fuses GPS and encoder, merges parallel passes into one swath, computes layer thicknesses and moisture, locates voids and cracks, attaches the survey photographs and videos to the pass and projects every survey into its local coordinate system, and takes from the radar record everything it holds.
Because AMG Software is ours, we control every analysis we deliver, adapt it to your needs and keep developing it, in a language chosen for speed and reliability. Our own .amgp survey format is designed for huge data sets, so that a whole line or a whole airfield is handled without a workstation and explored afterwards on an ordinary laptop.
AMG Viewer Edition is the program you receive. It bridges the gap between GPR expertise and the people who manage airports, railways and motorways: the full analysis in an intuitive interface an engineer can use without being a radar specialist.
The viewers we know show results; this one lets the owner of the data work with them. You record your findings from a catalogue, rate them, tick the recommendations and add your comments; the AMG Viewer marks them on every panel and writes the PDF report itself, with the maps and the pictures. You load your own layers into the AMG Viewer, from KMZ, shapefiles and the other formats you work with, more being added as our clients need them: deflection tests, cores, instrumentation, your inventory, on the same map, to cross-check and complete the picture. Data exports to Excel, CSV, DXF, GeoJSON, LandXML, Shapefile and KMZ.
No cloud: your assets are strategic, so their data stay on your computers. One year is included with every survey; the licence includes assistance and a hotline, and we adapt the tools to your needs on request.
From the radar files to your maps
→
→
→
Radar files from any manufacturer: GSSI, Kontur and others
AMG Software: the processing chain
The .amgp digital twin in AMG Viewer Edition
Maps, findings and the report; exports to Excel, CSV, DXF, GeoJSON, LandXML, Shapefile and KMZ
Tell us about your roads, airfields, railways or structures: we propose a survey plan, with examples from similar projects, within one working day.