Numerical modeling and analysis of a cylindrical reflector antenna for ground penetrating radar

Since 1988, we have developed and commercialized various types of impulse ground penetrating radar (GPR) systems for locating buried structures and utility pipes. The performance of GPR systems depends mainly on the characteristics of radar antennas. In this paper, we propose a cylindrical reflector antenna fed by a resistively loaded V-shaped dipole as a new traveling wave antenna for GPR. We construct a numerical model of the antenna and analyze its characteristics using the method of moments based on Rao-Wilton-Glisson basis functions. The analysis results indicate that the new antenna's directivity is sharper and the ringing noise is less than in our commercialized GPR antennas, thus a weight saving can be achieved in the next GPR systems.