Experimental Multi-Sensor GPR System for Humanitarian Demining

The paper describes the design of a multi-sensor ultra wideband GPR front-end suitable for subsurface imaging with resolution sufficient for antipersonnel mine recognition. The front-end comprises two sensors: a multi-static video impulse radar and a bistatic stepped-frequency continuous wave radar. In comparison with commercially available video impulse GPR systems the key advantages of the video impulse system are considerably larger bandwidth, high precision of measurements of scattered field, ability to measure polarimetric structure of the scattered field and high pulse repetition rate resulting in fast data acquistion. The principal advantage of the stepped-frequency continuous wave sensor over its predecessors is very short data acquisition time, which is comparable with that of video impulse radars.