Development of electromagnetic simulators for ground penetrating radar

This paper presents two electromagnetic simulators based on the Finite-Difference Time Domain (FDTD) technique and Boundary Element Method (BEM), for Ground Penetrating Radar applications. The first simulator is the new open-source version of the software gprMax, which employs Yee's algorithm to solve Maxwell's equations by using the FDTD method and includes advanced features allowing the accurate analysis of realistic scenarios. Additionally, E2GPR is a freeware package conceived to ease the use of gprMax: it assists in the creation, modification and analysis of two-dimensional models and can be used to plot results. The second simulator is TWiNS-II: this is free software for the analysis of multiple thin wires in the presence of two media, implementing the Galerkin-Bubnov Indirect BEM; calculations can be undertaken in the frequency or time domain. These tools have been developed by Members of the COST Action TU1208 'Civil Engineering Applications of Ground Penetrating Radar.