Development of Surface Penetrating Radars

We propose to utilize photonic technology to produce high-power short-duration pulses for surface penetrating radar applications. The electromagnetic pulses are generated by using a PIN diode circuit which is biased at high voltage. The static electric energy stored across the diode junction capacitance can be discharged through illuminating the diode with an optical pulse produced by a diode laser. however, the pulsewidth of the generated electromagnetic pulses are inevitably broadened due to the long life-time of the charge carriers existing in the semiconductor junctions. In the past we have demonstrated that by using a novel slot-microstrip junction assembly the tails of the generated electromagnetic pulses can be effectively suppressed, resulting in high-intensity short-duration electromagnetic pulses in a cost effective manner. This research will seek to provide low-cost and high accuracy surface penetrating radar technology that will facilitate the commercialization of nondestructive detection of buried objects so that high performance radar probes can find broader commercial applicability in the industrial, security, and medical markets. Our research can greatly enhance the performance of surface penetrating radar and many applications can result from our proposed work. For example, surface penetrating radar can be used to detect buried objects, landmines, and pipelines. Also, our numerical efforts can be utilized to develop diffraction tomographymethodology for medical applications.