Introduction to Radar

Lorenzo Lo Monte
Michael Wicks
Braham Himed

Welcome

Thank you for attending

In this lecture we will:

Introduce Radar Fundamentals

The Radar Range Equation
Loss Budget Formulation

Overview
These lectures provide a background on uses,
advantages, limitations, and operating principles of
prevalent radars
You will gain a familiarity with major radar
components and their function along with radar target
and clutter characteristics
These lectures also emphasizes radar analysis,
waveforms, and modeling
Upon completion of the course, you will have the
necessary knowledge and building blocks to analyze
modern radar research in the area of target detection,
pulse compression, waveforms, and signal design

Books

Books

A Special Thank You

U.S. Air Force
Research Laboratory
University of Dayton
Research Institute
IEEE AESS Dayton
Chapter
IEEE New Hampshire
Section
Dr. Robert ODonnell
Dr. Chris Baker (OSU)

Dr. Hugh Griffiths (UCL)

Georgia Tech Research
Institute
Dreamcatcher
Dr. Ian Cummings
Dr. Peter Tait
Dr. Mark Richards
William Melvin
Dr. Eli Brookner
MITRE Corporation
6

Two Inventions That

Changed the Outcome of WW2
According to George Patton

Radar

Proximity Fuze
7

Radar =
RADIO DETECTION AND RANGING

Radar Block Diagram

Modulator

Transmitters

Synchronizer

Display

Signal
Processor
Track
Processor

Receivers

Duplexer

Receiver
Protector

Servo
Control
9

Pre-Radar Detection
Visual
Royal
Observer
Corp.

Acoustic

10

Historical Background

Christian Doppler noted

how frequencies shift
when the radiator is in
motion with respect to
the observer.

James Clerk Maxwell

predicted the existence of
radio waves in his theory
of electromagnetism

Heinrich Hertz confirmed by

experiment that electromagnetic
radio waves have the same
velocity as light and can be
reflected by metallic and
dielectric bodies

11

The First Radar

Hlsmeyer, 1904
Motivated by the desire of
understanding how bats
could fly at night without
vision
Replicated the experiments of
Hertz in large scale
He developed the first
bistatic radar to detect
approaching boats at night
But the German government
didnt show much interest
12

Measurements of the Ionosphere

Sir Edward Victor Appleton constructed the first

HF radar to measure the height of the ionosphere.
The processing was based on what it is today called
FMCW

Gregory Breit and Merle Tove continued

the study of the Ionosphere, but they used
short pulses, leading to the development of
pulsed-radars

13

Robert Watson Watt

In 1935, Watson Watt had been asked by the
UK Air Ministry to investigate the feasibility
of electromagnetic death rays to disable
aircrafts
The idea was proposed by Nikola
Tesla, but never verified

He concluded that it would not be feasible,

but that detection of aircraft using radio
waves should be possible

The same year he demonstrated detection of

aircraft at a range of up to 8 miles in what
has become known as the Daventry
experiment
by June 1935 he had demonstrated the
pulsed radar technique to measure aircraft
range.

14

The Chain Home Radar Project

15

The First Report Mentioning RADAR

Nov 19, 1940

16

Radar and Pearl Harbor Attack

SCR-270 at Opana Site
(106MHz carrier)

Radar Screen at Opana Point

7:02AM on December 7th , 1941

17

Boot, Randall, and the Magnetron

Low frequency forced extremely large antennas. The
first radar stations used aerials over 100 m in height to
produce a directional beam of radio waves
But if aerials were much smaller and could be steered,
they would be much more useful
However, to make smaller aerials meant using radio
waves of shorter wavelengths
The cavity magnetron was created to generate such
waves
Randall and Boot of the Physics Department,
Birmingham University, made the first cavity
magnetron work in February 1940

18

Worlds First Magnetron

19

Klystron

William Hansen began work on the problem of

detecting approaching aircraft. Working Russell and
Sigurd Varian, he developed the klystron

Based upon amplitude modulation of an electron beam

rather than on resonant circuits permits the generation
of powerful and stable high-frequency oscillations
Advances made the klystron the primary method used
in radar

20

The First Klystron

21

Radar Taxonomy
RADAR

Ground
Based

Air
Search

Ship
Based

Air
Track

Fire
Control

Airborne

Ballistic
Missile

FAA

Weather
Other
- GPR
- Traffic

Space
Based

Intrusion OTH/
Surface
Wave

22

TPS-59

The TPS-59 is a solid-state L-Band,

three-dimensional air defense radar
which provides long range surveillance
and ground control intercept capability in a
tactically mobile environment

Full 360 coverage

400 nmi (740 km) range to 106 ft (305 km)
altitude
Increased alert time for military and
civilian personnel
Accurate launch and impact point
determination
Target classification and debris/missile
discrimination
Effective anti-missile battery cueing
Increased defended footprint

23

FPS-117

The AN/FPS-117 is a
phased array, 3-dimensional
air search radar. It is produced
by the LMCO. The system is a
low power, long range
(200-250 nautical miles),
L-band pencil beam,
solid-state transmitter
and beacon interrogator
search radar.

24

Ground Penetrating Radar

Features

Applications
Mine detection and marking
Detection and marking of buried unexploded
ordinance (UXO)
Detection and marking of buried hazardous
waste, electrical cables, telephone cables and
pipelines.
Detection and marking of leakage from petrol,
gas and water pipes
Measurement of thickness of road layers
Detection of tunnels and bunkers

Low magnetic and acoustic signatures

Modular hardware and flexible software
High reliability/high MTBF
Fully digital and solid state

Vehicle movement velocity:

Detection Width:
Detection Depth:
GPR Sensor Weight:

Characteristics

1 meter/sec
2-3 meters
0.3 - 15 meters
52 kps
25

AN/SPS-52C
3D Shipboard Air Defense Radar

Enhanced Performance
High clutter rejection MTI
Automatic plot and track extractor
Modular upgrades to existing systems
Low Cost
Key Features
E/F-band operation for long range
performance
Unstabilized or stabilized antenna group
High data rate, high PRF, short pulse
operation for target indication/tactical role
Low data rate, low PRF, long pulse operation
for maximum early warning
Variable antenna polarization to minimize
the effects of precipitation
Wideband tuneable magnetron for frequency
management
Receiver system with optional
comprehensive ECCM and anti-clutter
features

Performance
General surveillance operation: operating at 10

rev/min with low PRF and long pulse, the AWS-4

provides vertical coverage on a 4m2 target beyond 120
km range and 12 km in height.

High resolution operation: For optimum target

resolution and higher data rate, the radar is operated at

20 rev/min, high PRF and short pulse. For a 4m2 target,
vertical coverage extends beyond 90km range and 9km
height.

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Terrain Avoidance
Forward Looking Terrain Avoidance and Altitude

Provides terrain collision warning and altitude in adverse weather with minimal modification to aircraft

Features

Multifunction Altitude and

Range
Altitude range to 5,000 feet
Forward range to 10,000 feet
- Az, El and Range to
Obstacle
50 x 20 Forward Scanning
Antenna
Spread spectrum, milliwatts of
transmitted power and
frequency diversity provides
excellent covertness
4.3 and 35 GHz MMICs
Operates in fog, dust, smoke
and >10mm/hr rain rate

27

APS-145 Airborne Early Warning

(AEW)

28

AWACS

29

Multimode Fire Control Radar

(IAI)
Main Features

Pulse doppler, all aspect, look-down shoot down

capabilities
TWT coherent transmitter
Ultra low sidelobe planar antenna
Two axes monopulse, guard channel
Programmable signal processor
Full software control
Most advanced architecture, technology and
components
Adaptability and growth potential
MIL 1553B interface to avionic system
Modular hardware configuration
Spare memory space and computation power

Typical Performance

Detection range at fighter aircraft

Look-up, 35-55 NM
Look-down, 30-45 NM

Physical Characteristics

Weight: 78-100 Kg depending on antenna size

Power: 2-2.5 KVA
Antenna Size: adapted to aircraft nose limitations
30

Global Hawk Sensor Suite

31

The Radar Range Equation

Lorenzo Lo Monte
Michael Wicks
Braham Himed

32

Electromagnetic Spectrum

33

Radar Range Equation;

Rationale
The Radar Range Equation is the fundamental tool for
engineers to determine some of the radar specifications
to guarantee a required performance
The typical parameters that engineers can manipulate
using the radar range equation are:

Transmitted peak power

Antenna Gain
Frequency of Operation
Bandwidth of the Signal

34

Radar Range Equation:

Warnings
There is no unique definition of a radar range equation.
Depending upon the application, some variable are expressed
in different ways

The radar range equation wont suffice to design a

modern radar
The radar range equation derived here (and in most
books) assumes an old-fashion mode of operation,
which is currently superseded
At the end of the lecture, we will tweak the radar
equation to account for some of the modern processing
techniques
35

Radar Range Equation:

System Parameters
For a given Radar, we can define a few parameters
Peak transmitted power
Antenna Gain and
Assumed equal for both Tx and Rx, i.e., =

Frequency of operation

The wavelength will be more useful

36

Radar Range Equation:

Power Density
The radar sends a pulse. As the pulse propagates in the
space, its power spreads out in the space
At a given point in the space, one can define a power
density function

=
42

37

Radar Range Equation:

Power Density at the Target
However, due to the antenna pattern of the Radar, this
power is not equally distributed in the space
Usually, the target will be in the main beam of the antenna

This means that, in the direction of the target, the

power density can be expressed as:

42

38

Radar Range Equation:

Radar Cross Section
The pulse will eventually hit the target, and some
energy will be re-radiated back to the radar
The amount of reflected power depends on many
factors, such as:
Shape of the target
Aspect angle of the target

A common way to quantify the re-radiated field back to

the radar is the radar cross section
The theory of radar cross section is complicated, and it
will be discussed later
At this stage, we can account for the target scattering
properties with the variable

39

Radar Range Equation:

Received Power Density
The power reflected by the target is:

[]
2
4

The power density re-radiated to the receiver is:

42 2

40

Radar Range Equation:

Effective Area

By multiplying the received power density with a

surface area we obtain the received power
For any antenna, one can define an effective area
which relates the power density to the actual
power captured by the antenna
The effective area is in general smaller than the true
aperture . In general = , where is the
aperture efficiency

41

Radar Range Equation

Expressed in terms of Received
Power
Therefore, the power reflected by the target and
captured by the antenna is equal to:

=
[]
2
2
4
In typical electrically large antennas there exist a good
approximation between the effective area and the gain
= 4 2

So, the received power can be expressed as

2
=
[]
3
4
4

42

Radar Range Equation

We derived the simplest form of the radar range
equation, relating transmitted power with received
power
However, engineers prefer to design the system in
terms of signal to noise ratio
We need to recast the equation for this

To achieve that, we need to introduce a few other

assumptions:

The radar is limited by thermal noise: no signal can be detected

if resides below the thermal noise floor
The radar is simply sending pulses: no pulse compression or
integration gain is considered at this stage
43

Radar Range Equation:

The Noise Power
The thermal noise power measured at the receiver is:
=

K is the Botlzmann Constant

T is the ambient temperature in Kelvin
B is the bandwidth of the signal, usually then inverse of the
pulse width
F is the noise figure of the system, usually 3dB

The derivation and complete understanding of such

equation will be discussed in a future lecture

44

Radar Range Equation:

The SNR Formulation
2
Let us call the signal = =
4 3 4
Let us call the noise: =

The signal to noise ratio becomes:

2
=
4 3 4

4 =
4 3

This is the radar range equation in its classical form

45

Radar Range Equation:

Integrating Pulses
The radar range equation can be extended to
incorporate more phenomenology and more advanced
signal processing
When integrating the return of n coherent pulses, the
radar range equation becomes

2
= 1 =
4 3 4
When integrating the return on n incoherent pulses, the
overall effect in the range equation is
= 0.8 1

46

Losses: Fluctuation (Swerling) Loss

The true target scattering is better explained
statistically
Because some pulse echoes could be randomly
occurring below the noise floor, the effective SNR is
somewhat reduced
This can be taken into account by adding a loss factor
due to the statistical nature of the target
The actual value of is complicated and depends
upon the number of pulses and type of target

We will discuss and quantify this loss factor in a future lecture

47

Losses: System, Atmospheric

and Propagation

System losses, , due to cables and imperfect conducting materials.

Atmospheric losses, , due to water content
Propagation losses, , are due to several factors :

Earth curvature
variation of atmospheric refractive index with height
ground reflections
anomalous propagation
blind due to
high gain
requirement

less sensitive
areas
due to
ground
reflections

blind - due to Earth

curvature
48

Losses: Beamshape Loss

This loss term accounts for the fact that, as the beam
scans across the target, the signal amplitudes of the
pulses coherently or non-coherently integrated varies.
Typical values are:
1.6 dB for a scanning, fan beam radar
3.2 dB for a thinner beam, scanning radar
3.2 dB for a phased array radar

Other factors not

directly accounted for
include the possibility of
the target not being
centered in the beams
path, typical for phased
array radars

49

Losses: Signal Processing

Signal processing occurs in the digital domain, and it
usually consists of a discrete series of filters or FFTs
Filters and FFTs have inherent losses due to the sincshape functions
This loss may be overcome by using more filter banks
or FFTs with more samples, at the expenses of more
computational cost
In worst cases, this loss
may be up to 3dB
We call this loss
50

Range Equation including Losses

By adding all the losses contribution, the radar range
equation can be written as
2
=
4 3 4

51

Radar Range Equation

when using Pulse Compression
In future lectures we will see that, with opportune
signal processing, radar pulses can be compressed to
obtain a much higher peak, with respect to the noise
floor.
This is equivalent to a SNR increase

The approximate SNR gain is equal to =

52

Radar Range Equation

Using Pulse Compression
By accounting for pulse compression, the SNR becomes
2
=
4 3 4

However, this simplifies to

2
=
4 3 4

= =

In a system using pulse compression, it is the energy to

the target (not the peak signal power) that matters!

53

The Range Equation

for a Search Radar
The earlier radar range equation applies to a radar that dwells on
the target for n pulses.
Surveillance radar searches a specified angular region in a given
time.

Scan Time
Time that the Radar beam dwells on the target 0 =
Area covered (steradian)
Beam area 0

ts = t0 / 0 t0 / ( A E )

GT 4 / 0

GR = 4 Aeff / 2

Radar Range Equation

For a Search Radar

SNR =

PAvg GT Aeff to

( 4 )

neff

R KTFL

PAvg 4 Aeff ts 0

( 4 )

0 R KTFL
4

neff

PAvg Aeff
4 R 4 KTFL eff
n

ts

54

Graphical Solution to the

Radar Range Equation

55

Summary
A wide range of radar systems are currently deployed
world wide.
Legacy radars custom designed to application and
location
Modern radars more flexible
Performance prediction and analysis critical as modern
uses are varied and subject to change

56