LAUSR

A loaded ultrawideband unidirectional folded triangular bowtie antenna is proposed for ground penetrating radar (GPR) applications covering the (0.5–3 GHz) frequency range. The behavior of the proposed structure has been modeled and optimized using full-wave numerical simulations and measurements, in far-field and near-field settings in both time and frequency domains in free space and sandy medium. In particular, an impedance bandwidth of 100% with standing-wave ratio $\le$ 2, a broadside gain between 5 and 12 dBi, for total antenna size of $1.4\lambda _{m} \times \lambda _{m}$ , $\lambda _{m}$ free space wavelength at the center frequency, are achieved as confirmed by laboratory-controlled measurements in free space and in GPR settings.