Simulation Study for Underground Object Detection Using Pulse Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) System

One of the equipment that can be used in detecting underground objects is the GPR system. This equipment uses an electromagnetic wave reflection technique produced by its antenna. However, the clarity of the GPR radargram image produced by the system is said to depend on the operating frequency of the system. In order to study the effect of the operating frequency on the GPR radargram, this study developed simulations of the GPR system using three operating frequencies to detect the existence of an underground object, which was divided into a big-sized object and a small-size object. The selected operating frequencies were 0-0.13 GHz, 0-0.5 GHz and 0-1 GHz. The underground object’s depth was set at 2 cm, 5 cm, 7 cm, 20 cm and 30 cm from the ground surface. In the simulations, only the big underground object was detected, except when the object was set on the surface of the ground. Based on the GPR system simulation of underground object detection at 7cm, all the GPR systems developed were able to detect the big underground object, while the GPR system could not discover any small underground object. The GPR radargram produced by the system is able to show the location of the object in the image clearly.