Study about the radiation characteristics of bow-tie antennas with discrete resistor-loaded

The ground penetrating radar (GPR) system is an effective tool for nondestructively sensing subsurface environment. One of the most critical hardware components for the performance of the GPR system is the antenna, and the bow-tie antenna is one of common antennas used in the system. The conventional bow-tie antennas with perfect electrical conductors (PEC) panels have variable characteristics that depend on operating environment. In this paper, a bow-tie antenna with exponential discrete resistor-loaded is present. Radiated waveforms, input impedances, and footprints of resistor-loaded bow-tie antenna are investigated through the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The results show that the antenna with exponential discrete resistor-loaded can terminate the reflections at the end of antennas, and it is considerably less sensitive to their environment than the conventional bow-tie antenna with PEC panels.