GPR characterization of rocks buried in the Martian subsoil

This work presents theoretical and experimental analyses of GPR investigations for the detection of rocks buried in media simulating the Martian soil, in the framework of the “WISDOM” project of ExoMars mission. An experimental set-up has been built consisting in a box filled with a host material and scatterers, scannable with a GPR bistatic antenna. This set-up has also been implemented and studied through an electromagnetic CAD tool. Excellent agreement has been found between the measured and the simulated results on the scattering features, thus providing reliable information on the detectability of rocks in Martian complex subsurface scenarios.