Microwave detection of buried mines using non-contact, synthetic near-field focusing (Reprinted from IEE Proceedings)

Existing ground penetrating radars (GPR) are limited in their 3-D resolution. For the detection of buried land-mines, their performance is also seriously restricted by 'clutter. Recent work by the authors has concentrated on removing these limitations by employing multi-static synthetic focusing from a 2-D real aperture. This contribution presents this novel concept, describes the proposed implementation. examines the influence of clutter and of various ground features on the system's performance, and discusses such practicalities as digitisation and timesharing of a single transmitter and receiver. Experimental results from a variety of scenarios are presented.