Much attention is being given to the challenge of detecting buried non-metallic mines and National and international programmes are underway to develop more effective detection and clearance systems. Conventional metal detectors respond to the metal content of a mine, hence the minimum metal or plastic mine remains largely undetectable by current technology, particularly in areas where battlefield debris and shrapnel cause a high false alarm rate. Ground Probing Radar (GPR) offers useful performance improvements in these situations and used in conjunction with metal detector arrays can result in an improved fused performance in terms of increased signal to clutter ratio. This paper considers several aspects of the performance of GPR systems, in particular the antenna elements and arrays of antennas. Examples of the radar images of mines and the factors that influence image quality are presented.
