Feasibility of Non-Intrusive and Remote Identification of Chemical Contaminants Using Ground Penetrating

Recent environmental consciousness made it more and more important to detect and locate various kinds of objects, as well as areas and volumes of materials/contaminants with different electrical and chemical properties beneath the earth's surface. Among the targets we can count military explosives, electronic devices/components, heavy metals and alloys, fuels, and chemical contaminants related to conventional munitions. Two major driving and governing factors for the exploration process are the cost of the procedures, and the amount of inherent "intrusion and disturbance" that the process introduces to the zone of exploration. The Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) offers very desirable relief to such concerns while maintaining to keep the related operational costs down considerable. With the recent developments in radar signal propagation and antenna design technologies, it has become amazingly feasible to achieve increased penetration ranges, sharp resolutions, and the ability to distinguish between neighboring but different materials and contaminants located deep in the ground. Another participating advantage, which makes the acquired radar data more meaningful and very useful, is gained via the recent developments in the computer software engineering and image development techniques.