Response of realistic soil for GPR applications with 2-D FDTD

The three-dimensional (3D), wideband, bistatic ground penetrating radar (GPR) scatter response of rough, realistic ground is efficiently and accurately simulated using a hybrid high resolution 3D and large area two-dimensional (2D) finite difference time domain (FDTD) model. The 3D computation carefully models the transmitting and receiving antennas, while the 2D FDTD models wave propagation between the antennas and the scattering by the soil below them. The FDTD soil model considers realistic frequency dependent (dispersive) soil with Gaussian height variations. The modeling results are compared to experiments performed with the Geo-Centers, Inc., Newton, MA, commercially available GPR system used for mine detection. Despite the simplicity of the 2D model, the results of the simulation and the experiment agree quite well.