Dual Continuous Wave Radar for Ground Object Detection in GNU-Radio with USRP

This research is about the implementation of a dual continuous wave (CW) ground penetrating radar for the Ettus USRP B210 software defined radio device. Two high- powered and low-frequency continuous waves were transmitted on the ground and reflected signals are then processed, displayed and analyzed in real-time to characterize buried objects. The system is implemented in GNU-Radio, an open- source software defined radio (SDR) platform. Open-source GNU-Radio modules were used together with the digital signal processing blocks developed by the researchers including the "Dual CW Preprocessing Block", "Reflection Simulator", and "Qt Dual CW Plot Sink" to implement in the SDR framework. The output comes with a Linux desktop application to display real-time plots of the ground penetrating radar. The work also includes a GNU-Radio improvised A-scan and B-scan obtained from simulated impulse radar reacting from the amplitude and range information of the system. The system was then tested on the USRP B210 hardware for preliminary investigation and results of the initial data obtained are presented in this work. The system has working detection within one meter of depth, however more calibration work is required to improve its ranging accuracy.