Linking degree of saturation with the complex dielectric permittivity of limestone in a GPR frequency band using SVR

This paper focuses on the development and validation of an innovative method for estimating the degree of saturation in limestone. A protocol is designed to control, homogenize and validate such an estimation. The complex dielectric permittivity is acquired from the coaxial electromagnetic transition line on a limited frequency bandwidth. Calibration curves connecting the dielectric permittivity and the degree of saturation are obtained. The use of variants of Jonscher’s model makes it possible to overcome the frequency dependence and propose a relationship between Jonscher model parameters and the degree of saturation. A supervised learning method (v-SVR) has been successfully introduced to estimate the degree of saturation from these parameters. The results have been experimentally validated on a wide range of limestone samples.