Steeped Frequency and UWB Pulse Based Radars for Landmine Detection

This paper presents two most effective approaches for landmine detection using propagation of electromagnetic waves. The goal of this paper was to present the development of a low-cost and light weight short range ground penetrating radar using standard radio frequency electronic components. The ground penetrating radar can be designed within time or frequency domain principles. The UWB pulse based radar represents time domain implementation of the radar which uses short pulses with typical time duration of few 100 ps. Radar within the frequency domain is a stepped frequency continuous wave radar which transmits a certain amount of frequencies and observes the phase delay of the back scattered signal. This paper presents the development of both radars. The experimental results showed that different types of landmines buried up to 50 cm below surface can be detected down to the size of 10 cm using both principles.