Fully-polarimetric ground penetrating radar application

The ground penetrating radar (GPR) has broad applications in the fields of geology, civil engineering, archeology and military . It is usually used as a non-destructive inspection sensor for monitoring, inspecting and characterizing obscured objects by means of electromagnetic radiation, propagation and scattering. Unlike radars operated in the open air, the medium between the GPR and the target usually determines the performance instead of the target and the radar. The sensitivity of GPR applications is limited by clutter instead of noise or radar system. The increasing needs for better detection and discrimination capability have driven GPR users and researches to investigate the pattern and polarization characteristics of the GPR antenna designs. New GPR antenna designs were developed to provide improved sensitivity and stability. An example of fully-polarimetric GPR application that has not been seen previously is presented. Some important issues such as clutter sources, radiation patterns and propagation efficiency faced by the most GPR applications are also discussed.