# Automatic Road Subsurface Distress Recognition from Ground Penetrating Radar Images using Deep Learning-based Cross-verification

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11081 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.11081/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [YOLOX: Exceeding YOLO Series in 2021](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.08430/) (2021)
- [Spatial Pyramid Pooling in Deep Convolutional Networks for Visual Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.4729/) (2014)
- [CSPNet: A New Backbone that can Enhance Learning Capability of CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11929/) (2019)
- [An Improved Convolutional Neural Network System for Automatically Detecting Rebar in GPR Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09997/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [TriView-YOLO: Early Multi-View Fusion for Ground Penetrating Radar Cavity Detection in Soft, High-Water-Content Soils](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.09522/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has become a rapid and non-destructive solution for road subsurface distress (RSD) detection. However, recognizing RSD from GPR images is labor-intensive and heavily relies on the expertise of inspectors. Deep learning-based automatic RSD recognition, though ameliorating the burden of data processing, suffers from insufficient capability to recognize defects. In this study, a novel cross-verification strategy was proposed to fully exploit the complementary abilities of region proposal networks in object recognition from different views of GPR images. Following this strategy, three YOLO-based models were used to detect the RSD (voids and loose structures) and manholes. Each model was trained with a specific view of 3D GPR dataset, which contains rigorously validated 2134 samples of diverse types obtained through field scanning. The cross-verification strategy achieves outstanding accuracy with a recall of over 98.6% in the tests using real field-scanning data. Field tests also show that deep learning-based automatic RSD recognition can reduce the human labor of inspection by around 90%.