Ultra-wideband Vivaldi antenna design for multisensor adaptive ground-penetrating impulse radar

This paper describes a partially dielectric-loaded Vivaldi antenna (PDVA) structure that maintains ultra-wideband antenna characteristics over a bandwidth ratio greater than 25:1 so as to improve the impulse radiation characteristics for multisensor adaptive ground-penetrating Radar (GPR) operations. The PDVA is introduced for metal-detector-combined GPR head designs in order to avoid performance degradations based on the sensor interferences. It is shown that high gain. low input reflection, and signal-ringing levels over the wide operational bands are attainable for a PDVA with proper dielectric and absorber loadings (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.