Ice-flood prevention in yellow river using GPR and unmanned helicopter

Ice-jammed flood severely imperil the safety of people's life and property, which lives alongside the Yellow River. Using GPR and unmanned helicopter can get the spatial distribution of ice layer thickness, and provide the important investigation parameter of ice-jammed flood prevention and the best position for bombing the ice. This paper presents the compose of ice-jammed flood prevention GPR system. And introduces the automatic ice layer thickness calculating algorithm. Also field experiments were carried out in Yellow River in Baotou, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China in March 2013 and 2014. The experiments prove that using GPR and unmanned helicopter is effective and applicable for ice layer thickness detection. It provided important early time data and dependable science basis for reducing the threat of ice-jammed flood.