The development of accurate and realistic models of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) antennas is being driven by research into quantitative amplitude information from GPR, improved GPR antenna designs, and better-performing forward simulations that can feed into inversion algorithms. The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method and Finite-Integration technique (FIT) are popular numerical methods for simulating electromagnetic wave propagation. Time-Domain methods are particularly well-suited to modelling ultra-wideband GPR antennas as a broad range of frequencies can be modelled with a single simulation. We present comparisons using experimental and simulated data from a Geophysical Survey Systems 1.5 GHz antenna and a MALÅ Geoscience 1.2 GHz antenna. The antennas were investigated in free space and over a lossy dielectric environment with a target. For the simulations we used a commercial solver - Computer Simulation Technology Microwave Studio (CST) - and a free open-source FDTD solver - gprMax. For each test scenario, phase and amplitude information from the antenna responses were compared. Generally, we found very good agreement between the experimental data and the two simulations.
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