Miniaturised ultra-wideband rectangular shaped slot antenna for ground penetrating radar applications

In the proposed work, a miniaturised ultra-wideband tapered slot planar antenna with the aim of gain enhancement, working bandwidth containing lower frequency range, and improving antenna efficiency is presented. The proposed antenna consists of a slotted patch printed on the top layer of FR4 substrate with three 50-omega resistors connected in the slotted arms and bottom layer consists of an optimized ground plane with a non-uniform parasitic patch which is used to achieve circular polarization in the frequency range of 2.4-2.6 GHz. The measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 0.3-4 GHz with a peak gain of 3.2 dBi. The overall antenna efficiency is 83% and radiation patterns of the proposed design on different frequencies are shown to confirm the proposed antenna result, especially at lower frequencies. The proposed antenna can be used for the detection of artifacts in the deeper ground known as ground-penetrating radar applications.