Radar for Meteorite Search 

This is the main page for documentation regarding the use of radar technologies as part of the sensor research under the Robotics Search of Antarctic Meteorites. The past and current developments of radar indicate that it has excellent possibilities of being part of the sensors of a remote explorer that will search for meteorites on ice and snow surfaces.

One important property of radar sensors is the ability of penetrating the surface, to bring information about the layer composition, buried objects and other underground features. This is specially important considering that the meteorites might be covered by layers of snow or buried slightly in ice.

Radar sensors are immune to weather and dust conditions, so it is the preferred terrain mapping and obstacle detection sensor for an semiautonomous explorer in antarctic operations, where meteorites are more likely to be.

Even more important then the ability to detect buried meteorites, the detection of voids and hidden crevasses is vital for the machine safeguarding. This technology allows the machine to detect this dangers before stepping in to them.

The effort has been broken down into several smaller components which will be described at length as things progress. Documentation for these smaller components will appear as links from this page as it emerges.

GPR Research Pages

GPR stands for Ground Penetrating Radar. This sensor works with relatively low frequencies (usually under 1 GHz). The low frequency allows ground and soil penetration, and the echo returned from the interfaces of different media is used to obtain information about buried objects, voids and layers of different composition under the surface.

The following pages are related to the Anctarctic Season 97-98 (first project expedition).

Navigation Radar Research Pages

Radar sensors are immune to weather and dust conditions, so it is feasible as obstacle detection sensor for an semiautonomous explorer in antarctic operations, where meteorites are more likely to be. Radar with high frequencies might detect objects and obstacles to obtain traversability information.

Robotic Search for Antarctic Meteorites 1997 
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Send comments, questions, or suggestions to: meteorite-info@ri.cmu.edu 
This document prepared by Alex Foessel