Imaging Study for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-Mounted Ground-Penetrating Radar: Part II - Numeric Examples and Performance Analysis

Abstract

This report investigates the possible configurations of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) system installed on a small unmanned aerial vehicle platform and used for buried target imaging. The second part of this study presents a large set of numerical examples of synthetic aperture images obtained with such a radar system. The primary approach consists of simulating the point spread function of the system working in either down-looking or side-looking configuration, horizontal-horizontal or vertical-vertical polarization. Both 2-D and 3-D GPR imaging systems are considered in this work, emphasizing the advantages of certain sensing modalities over the others. Image attributes such as resolution, grating lobes, signal strength, ground bounce separation, and surface clutter sensitivity are used in the performance comparison. Additionally, we include images based on realistic radar models involving a buried antitank landmine and obtained via simulations with the AFDTD software.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1075772

Entities

People

  • Traian V. Dogaru

Organizations

  • United States Army Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Geometry
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Ground Penetrating Radar
  • Land Mines
  • Radar
  • Scattering
  • Simulations
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar
  • Target Recognition
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Vehicles
  • Wave Propagation

Readers

  • Electromagnetic Wave Scattering and Antenna Radiation Engineering
  • Radar Systems Engineering.
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy