Generalized Iterative Sparse Maximum Likelihood Algorithm for the Detection of Buried Targets (opens in new tab)

This article presents a generalized iterative sparse maximum likelihood algorithm (GSMLA) for buried-target detection using ground penetrating radar (GPR). The proposed approach extends the classical SMLA family (SMLA-0, SMLA-1, and SMLA-2) while addressing their individual limitations. Although SMLA-0 achieves strong sparsity and effectively suppresses smearing, it struggles to recover scatterers under low-SNR conditions. SMLA-1 improves detectability but remains affected by smearing, outlie...