Development of a New High Speed Dual-Channel Impulse Ground Penetrating Radar

This paper presents the development of a dual channel, air coupled Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) targeting highway pavements and bridge deck inspections. Compared to most existing GPRs with a single channel and low survey speeds, our GPR possesses competitive features, including wide area coverage, high spatial resolution and operating capability at normal highway driving speed (up to 60 mph). The system has a two-channel microwave front end, a high speed (8 Gsps) real time data acquisition unit, a high throughput multithread data transmission and storage module, and a customized low-cost control element developed in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Experiments with different steel reinforcing bars establish GPR system performance.