This paper investigates the possible configurations of a ground penetrating radar (GPR) system installed on a small UAVplatform and used for buried target imaging. After discussing the advantages of this type of platform as compared toexisting designs, we proceed to analyzing the imaging performance of the proposed system. This is done first bysimulating the point spread function of the system, then by using realistic radar models involving a buried antitanklandmine. The study has the following objectives: finding the best sensing geometry for this type of targets; optimizingthe frequency band, polarization, and synthetic aperture length, position and sampling rate for best imaging performance;and developing SAR image formation algorithms for this GPR system. Both 2-D and 3-D GPR imaging systems areconsidered in this work, emphasizing the advantages of certain sensing modalities over the others. Image attributes suchas resolution, grating lobes, signal strength, ground bounce separation and surface clutter sensitivity are used in theperformance comparison.
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