Ground Penetrating Radar: The Electromagnetic Signal Attenuation and Maximum Penetration Depth

The use of high frequencies limits the penetration of the radar energy; this low penetration depends, at a parity of used frequencies, on the electromagnetic properties of the investigated material. The principal drawback is the elevated sensibility of the system to the variations of the EM properties of the environment immediately surrounds the antennas. The radar signals that arrive at the receiving antenna are attenuated and modified because of the selective absorption of the pulses by the ground, because of geometrical spreading, and because of an alteration of the actual amplitude due to the instrument amplification. In this paper, the absorption of the radar signal is taken into consideration and we determine, respectively, (i) the radar signal attenuation in the ground, (ii) the electrical conductivity (σ) and the relative dielectric permettivity (RDP) of the ground, and (iii) the maximum penetration depth of GPR in the ground.