Surface Penetrating Radar (SPR) is a recently developed technology for non-destructive testing. It can be used to image and interpret the inner structure of the reinforced concrete. This paper gives the details about a compact and handheld SPR developed recently for reinforced concrete structure detection. The center operation frequency of the radar is 1.6 GHz. Not only it has fast acquisition ability, but also it can display the testing result on the LCD screen in real-time. The testing results show that the radar has a penetrating range of more than 30 cm, and a lateral resolution better than 5 cm. The performance validates that the radar can meet the application requirements for reinforced concrete structure detection. Surface Penetrating Radar (SPR) is a recently developed technology for non-destructive testing. It can be used to image and interpret the inner structure of the reinforced concrete. This paper gives the details about a compact and handheld SPR developed recently for reinforced concrete structure. detection. The center operation frequency of the radar is 1.6 GHz. Not only it has fast acquisition ability, but also can display the testing result on the LCD screen in real-time. The testing results show that the radar has a penetrating range of more than 30 cm, and a lateral resolution better than 5 cm. The performance validates that the radar can meet the application requirements for reinforced concrete structure detection.