Developing moving platform mounted polarimetric GPR system

Abstract

Generally GPR transmits and receives radio waves with a single polarization using two parallel antennas, which can't use the polarimetric information. But it is possible to improve the subsurface imaging and discriminate targets by analyzing the backscattered wave with a variety of polarizations. Some successful cases were showed in unexploded ordnance and landmine detection. We are developing a full-polarimetric GPR system mounted in the moving platform and calibration technology. The full-polarimetric GPR system includes PC, network analyzer, rectangular coordinates robot, switch driver, and polarimetric antenna array. The polarimetric antenna array is used to transmit and receive both co-polarimetric and cross-polarimetric signals. We introduced the calibration technique of polarimetric SAR into the polarimetric GPR, and derived a new mathematical formulation. By measuring several scattering matrices, we can obtain the solutions of all variables as calibration coefficients.