Design of a full polarimetric GPR system for landmine detection

In this contribution a design of a full polarimetric multi-channel Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) with optimized antenna switching is presented. Firstly, a single-polarized system was used to obtain multiple measurements of a static scene with different antenna orientation and providing a full polarimetric dataset. Laboratory experiments have been performed on metal test landmines and where promising results have been obtained. The single-polarized radar system was modified to a multichannel system with focus on decreasing the scanning time. The selected frequency range covers the band of 550 MHz to 2.7 GHz, which corresponds in soil to a range resolution of approximately 7 cm. There was no need to use a Power Amplifier (PA) at the transmitter stage, since a highly sensitive receiver is implemented. This greatly decrease the power consumption and makes the device suitable for battery powered platforms. Physical contact between the ground and antennas was avoided with using the air-launched measurement technique, where additionally the level of safety is higher.