A novel low-profile SWB unidirectional supershaped antenna for advanced ground penetrating radar applications

We report an advanced mathematical method featuring both antenna miniaturization and bandwidth enhancement for super wideband (SWB) antennas intended for advanced GPR applications. By implementing the supershape formula a wide range of practical antenna shapes can be described by just three design parameters, facilitating a lot the optimum antenna design. As a proof-of-concept, a PCB-based, balanced-fed antenna is presented and demonstrated. Our antenna design exhibits SWB characteristics since it operates in the frequency range 0.48 - 10.2GHz meeting the trade-off requirements for depth penetration and range resolution. Additionally, the employed floated ground plane yields a unidirectional broadside radiation pattern making the use of shielding and absorbing cavity unnecessary. Pattern stability is observed over the whole operating frequency range. In time-domain, a low pulse late-time ringing was achieved through the radiator shape optimization and the thin absorbing layer introduction as resistive loading method.