Lead Supervisor: Dr Antonis Giannopoulos

Application Deadline: Open all year but the selected candidate must start on 1^st October 2015

Contact Email (this will be used for interested applicants to email for further details) A.Giannopoulos<στο>ed.ac.uk 

Funding Details:

Fully funded for 3.5 years. Stipend starts at £15,006.

UK only

Project description

With the aid of an existing numerical modelling framework the porject's key objective is to develop a novel bespoke ground penetrating radar antenna desing that can be used to faithfully transmit and receive signals to and from near surface targets. The antenna needs to offer excellent broadband performance with quick ring-down characteristics and minimal interference with unwanted objects often found in challenging complex near surface environments.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a powerful investigative technique for obtaining accurate information about the location of possible targets buried in the shallow subsurface. The method is of particular relevance in the detection of antipersonnel landmines.

Although GPR is a very powerful and versatile tool the complexity of information obtained after a GPR survey often prevents us from obtaining the maximum information contained in the GPR data. This complexity arises not only from the fact that GPR responds to a variety of targets but also because GPR transducers operate in close proximity to the ground which dynamically affects their properties and influence the received signals significantly. To fulfil the potential that GPR has as an investigative tool we need to significantly improve our understanding of GPR operation in varied soil environments and be able to accurately model and predict its response and performance using different antenna designs.

The primary objective and challenge of the proposed research work is to design a novel bespoke GPR antenna that can be used to faithfully transmit and receive signals to and from the intended targets offering excellent broadband performance with quick ring-down characteristics and minimal interference with unwanted objects often found in its complex operating environment.  This is an interesting and challenging task, which could result in a step change in our ability to detect targets and reduce false alarm rates. Such GPR antenna design and development has to take into account the details and constrains imposed from the demanding operational environment.

The project will benefit directly from an already developed efficient modelling framework that allows us to faithfully model GPR responses when operating in complex environments. It is envisaged that testing of a prototype of the final design of the developed GPR antenna will be done at Dstl.

Specific eligibility criteria

Experience with MATLAB and/or numerical python and C programming is desirable and familiarity with work in a UNIX computing environment would be an asset as well as any experience in computational electromagnetics. The candidate should be able to demonstrate independence and curiosity and be able to lead the project forward.

Further information to be included (eg, institute/ external website /profile page)

To apply, please go to: edin.ac/17MMc0j and select the Research Area “Infrastructure and the Environment”