Airborne Reflector-Based Ground Penetrating Radar for Environmental and Archaeological Studies

In this work, a wideband airborne reflector-based ground penetrating radar (GPR) is designed and proposed. The proposed GPR consists of 15 discrete panels, each panel supported by a single multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A lightweight, wideband Vivaldi antenna was developed as the feed structure. The antenna operates within the frequency range of 100–500 MHz and has a bandwidth of 387 MHz. The proposed antenna will possess a penetration depth of 2 m. Different panel configurations are studied and it is found that 15 discrete panels each with a dimension of 30 cm by 4 m and separated by 30 cm acts as a reflector antenna with a high gain of 14.25 dBi.