Miniaturized dipole antenna development for low frequency Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) system

Abstract

A miniaturized symmetrical dipole antenna with extra radiating arms is proposed for low frequency operation (100 MHz) in ground penetrating radar applications to achieve high depth penetration at low resolution. The dipole antenna design is of total dimension 66.5 cm × 22 cm. A parametric study of antenna performance is performed via simulation with Agilent Advanced Digital System software which indicates an optimum length of 15 cm for the extra arm with a gap of 5 cm between the dipole arm and extra arm. The results are validated experimentally in room conditions with a prototype antenna fabricated on 1.6 mm thick FRA substrate, copper layer thickness of 17 µm. The antenna operating at a centre frequency of 104 MHz and bandwidth of 8 MHz for VSWR ≤ 2 achieves a 55% reduction in length compared to a conventional dipole operating at 100 MHz while delivering typical dipole radiation pattern with directivity gain of 2.06 dBi.

Embedded iron object detection using asynchronous full wave envelope detector technique in ground penetrating radar system

“…Due to this concern and technology development, a ground penetrating radar (GPR) system was developed. This system is also known as the non-destructive technique (NDT) which can detect an embedded object underground with minimizing damage to the earth's surface area and the embedded object as discussed by Daniels [1], Pramudita et al [4], Howlader and Sattar [5], Gopalakrishnan et al [6], Thomas and Roy [7], Ziboon et al [8], and Galajda et al [9]. The minimization of damage to the ground surface area and embedded objects can occur because the GPR system uses electromagnetic wave radiation emitted from the system antenna which serves as an embedded object detector [10]- [12].…”

“…However, the detection of embedded objects using this GPR system depends on the frequency range used by the system [19]. Low image resolution from the use of a low-frequency range will result in blur radargram image display produced by the system if using pulse modulation (PM) technique [3], [5], [20], [21].…”