Development of embedded and user-side software for interactive setup of a frequency-modulated continuous wave ground penetrating radar dedicated to educational purposes

This paper describes the software and firmware programs for interactive control of a frequency-modulated continuous-wave ground-penetrating radar (GPR). The presented radar system is being developed at Sapienza University of Rome in the framework of the project carried out by European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action TU1208. The research is focused on developing an affordable GPR and introducing it into the educational process. At the current stage of the project a GPR prototype was implemented from off-the-shelf components, it combines cheapness with fine operating characteristics and allows studying different signal modulation patterns. The developed software for the GPR prototype proper functioning was written in Python, it provides graphical user interface allowing simple and convenient user interaction with the system. Moreover, a complementing firmware program was developed to realize control functionalities such as selecting frequency range, period and waveform of the transmitted signal.