History

As with much innovative technology, ground-penetrating radar was initially developed by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to assist in finding the enemy in their underground passages and bunkers. The technology eventually found its way into the commercial field and, initially, Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc., developed ground-penetrating radar into a viable tool for shallow penetration up to about 5 m and named their product subsurface interface radar. This name relates to the fact that ground-penetrating radar is able to produce an image of what is below the ground, by reflecting radar frequency waves, emitted by a transmitter, from any interface in the ground, such as earth/water, earth/rock, rock/air, etc., back to the receiving antenna. Usually this antenna is built into the same box as the transmitter, and drawn over the ground, producing data which can be processed and converted into a vertical cross section or slice of ground below where the transmitter/receiver, henceforth referred to as the antenna, has been drawn.

Dr. Hylton White, a South African physicist, was working in the United States in the 1980s and became involved with ground-penetrating radar. Upon returning to South Africa he continued his involvement, working first for the South African Chamber of Mines and then for a company that obtained the sales rights for Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc., in South Africa, during 1990. At this same time, a large contract for the replacement of water mains...