Ultra wide band antenna designs for ground penetrating impulse radar systems

The Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) techniques have been increasingly used for the detection and identification of the buried artifacts and structures within the upper regions of the earth's surface. Ultra wide band (UWB) GPR is used in order to benefit from both low and high frequencies. The main problem is to design an UWB antenna which radiates uniformly shaped GPR impulse signal with high efficiency. In this study, some types of the planar antennas, TEM horns and the dielectric loading techniques are mainly investigated for the hand-held and vehicle-mounted GPR systems. The numerical and experimental results which could contribute to the antenna technology and convenient to the physical applications are presented.