A controlled experiment for water front monitoring using GPR technology

We use a stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) radar and an impulse radar to monitor a water flood experiment in a sand box. The SFCW system operates in the bandwidth from 800 MHz to 2.8 GHz. The impulse radar system is bi-static and works with a central frequency of 1 GHz. The sand box is a meter-scale cylinder partially filled by sand and the water is injected gradually from the bottom of the box. We investigate the ground coupled antenna configuration for both radars. The results demonstrate that the present configuration is useful for monitoring water front movement, but that to have a field application in an oil field environment a quantitative analysis is necessary. This can be done by antenna calibration and inverse modeling.