Geoscanners FLB-390
Airborne Antenna
FLB-390 is an air launched ground penetrating antenna developed specifically to cover the needs for noncontact antennas in applications where full contact is not possible. The side lobe isolation properties of FLB-390 are exceptionally good, even though this can be a problem area for air launched antennas in general.
Because of the scalability of the Geoscanners products, it is easy for the user to use the same antenna for different situations, surveys and environments. FLB-390 is no exception and can be used for rough and even terrains, high speed road inspections, measurements from helicopters and more. It can also, because of the very narrow antenna beam and extremely high front-to-back ratio, be used in crowded environments where other antennas might not be up to the task.
FLB-390 is a good extension of the road survey systems that only have horn antennas with shallow penetration. When combining the horn antennas with FLB-390, the user will have a powerful system for surveys that require both shallow and deep penetration. With this configuration the users will be able to inspect the top road layers and deeper subbase anomalies in one go.
Irregardless of whether FLB-390 is used alone or with other antennas, the user will have a powerful air launched antenna for deep penetration.
Area of Application
- Rough and uneven terrain where ground coupled antennas cannot be used
- Secondary lining tunnel surveys
- Ballast inspection surveys
- Snow layer measurements from helicopters
- Volcanic ash layer measurements
- High speed road inspection surveys
Air launched antennas with narrow beams like FLB-390 do not produce wide hyperbolas like ground coupled antennas do. Because of this, air launched antennas are not a very good choice for utility detection surveys, but are well suited for detection of cavities and layers.
Because a large amount of energy is wasted in the interface between the air and ground surface, air launched antennas have to produce a very narrow beam to focus as much energy as possible into the ground to get a proper response. In conductive areas the penetration can be affected even further by the resonance established between the conductive surface and the antenna elements.
Since the antenna elements are not placed right on top of the ground metal pipes close to the surface, they do not produce heavy coupling like the ground coupled antennas do. This can, to some extents, be a disadvantage and an advantage at the same. When looking for layers and cavities, these pipes will not disrupt the operation of the FLB-390 like they otherwise do with the ground coupled antennas.
