Electrically short antenna with ground-coupling measurement for M-sequence ground penetrating radar

M-Sequence Ground-Penetrating Radar With Novel Front-End Concept

“…in [14] and [15], the M-sequence radar features simpler design with higher versatility and uses less components with critical tolerances. The previous work of the authors on the M-sequence GPR, concentrated on its receiving front-end, is documented in [16].…”

“…Our first goal is the lower cut off frequency equal to 50 MHz.  Hardware support for monitoring of variable antenna-to-ground coupling and electrical properties of the soil in the near field of the antenna is required for estimation of soil properties and improved antenna positioning [16].…”

“…As the frequency range of the GPR covers significantly lower frequencies than typical M-sequence radars designed for other purposes (mostly in FCC or ECC band from 3 to 10 GHz), antennas and front-end analogue circuits have to be redesigned. Thanks to the M-sequence constant amplitude, requirements on the dynamic range of the analogue circuits are much more relaxed than of those for pulse-based GPRs [16]. Moreover, the M-sequence is a rectangular-like signal, therefore the linearity requirements are not that strict as well.…”

“…The details of the amplifier design are elaborated in [16] as well as the detailed description of the short dipole UWB receiving antenna.…”

“…On the other hand, the current source driver approach should bring improvements at a cost of more complicated circuit design. The state of the art LCR drivers are summarized in [23] and a driver for GPR applications is proposed in [16]. However, the research is still ongoing.…”