SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR MINERAL PROSPECTOR

摘要

A method for detecting underground natural resources using synthetic aperture radar includes providing a ground-penetrating phase-coherent radar system incorporating a moving platform; sending a plurality of radar signals from a plurality of points along a plurality of paths through an underground volume, the plurality of radar signals producing a plurality of radar returns; collecting the plurality of radar returns along the plurality of paths with the ground-penetrating phase-coherent radar system; coherently processing the plurality of radar returns with a processing circuit to determine a characteristic of a sub-surface feature; retrieving information relating to a reference underground volume from a memory; and identifying a potential sub-surface resource by using the processing circuit to compare the characteristic of the sub-surface feature with the information relating to the reference underground volume.