Wide band coplanar waveguide-fed bowtie slot antenna for a large range of ground penetrating radar applications

摘要

For the non-destructive sounding of the sub-surface for a large range of applications, a coplanar waveguide-fed bowtie slot antenna operating in a wide frequency band [0.4;1.5] GHz has been designed. The main originality of our work is the extension of the operating frequency band of the uniplanar bowtie slot antenna to frequencies lower than 800 MHz. The shape and the dimensions of the antenna have been optimised in the presence of a soil using numerical simulations based on the finite difference time domain approach. For the characterisation of the sub-surface, a transmission link comprising a pair of bowtie slot antennas that are moved along the soil surface has been studied in details to obtain the system performance in the frequency and time domains. First experimental results have been obtained on a sandy soil in the frequency domain using a vector network analyser. The experimental data have been analysed and compared with simulations results.