A 900MHz shielded bow-tie antenna system for ground penetrating radar

A back-cavity shielded bow-tie antenna system working at 900MHz center frequency for ground-coupled GPR application is investigated numerically and experimentally in this paper. Bow-tie geometrical structure is modified for a compact design and back-cavity assembly. A layer of absorber is employed to overcome the back reflection by omni-directional radiation pattern of a bow-tie antenna in H-plane, thus increasing the SNR and improve the isolation between T and R antennas as well. The designed antenna system is applied to a prototype GPR system. Tested data shows that the back-cavity shielded antenna works satisfactorily in the 900MHz GPR system.