Study about the radiation properties of an antenna for ground-penetrating radar

The ground penetrating radar (GPR) system is an effective tool for nondestructively sensing subsurface environment. One of the most critical hardware components for the performance of the GPR system is the antenna. The system demands an antenna with fewer multiple reflections of the input signal from different parts of the antenna. There are only a few types of antennas that are widely used in GPR systems, such as resistively loaded cylindrical monopoles, resistively or resistor-loaded bow-tie antennas, TEM horns and their modification, and spiral antennas. In the paper, a GPR antenna with discrete exponential resistive loading is present, and it can terminate the ringing. The near-zone radiation pattern and waveform of the antenna are analyzed through the finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method. At last, the comparison of the simulation and measured results were shown when the transmitter and receiver antennas on the above of the dry sand.