A Novel Compact Tapered-Slot Antenna for GPR Applications

A novel compact planar tapered-slot antenna for ground penetrating radar (GPR) system is proposed. The antenna is fed by a coplanar waveguide (CPW) and evolved from one slotline of the compact CPW. Another slotline of the compact CPW forms a magnetic antenna as a supplement to the tapered-slot antenna. Some discontinuous points on the compact antenna structure will produce a relatively strong reflection, so the resistive loading is introduced. In order to validate the antenna performance, one prototype is fabricated and measured. The results demonstrate that the impedance bandwidth of the tapered slot antenna can span 0.64-6 GHz with the VSWR below 2, which agrees well with the simulated result. The radiation characteristics of the proposed antenna are measured, and its application for moving target tracking is also validated in a GPR system.