Physics Assessment

Radar
Radar is short for radio detection and ranging. This means that radar is detecting things and determining there range via radio waves. It is used in many areas of todays society such as meteorology, military, police monitoring cars speeds, tracking and communicating with satellites and radar is even used with automatic doors. All these uses of Radar would not be possible without the knowledge of the properties of radio waves as Radar is in essence the receiver and transmitter of radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves and are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This means that they are a combination of a magnetic and electric fields with both of the fields oscillating perpendicular to each other. Radio waves were first predicted to exist in 1865 by James Clerk Maxwell. They are on the lower frequency end of the spectrum with a frequency ranging from 3x10^8 hertz to 300,000 Hertz. Radio waves are created by an electric current and can be detected by aerials and electric circuits. Radio waves follow all the normal rules for electromagnetic waves such as travelling at the speed of light in a vacuum. Radar is the use of these waves to detect objects and determine their speed and direction form the source of the radio waves. In a Monostatic Radar the source and receiver of the radio waves is located together. The source part of the Radar or antenna emits radio waves of a precisely known and controlled wavelength. This is caused by an alternating electric current in the antenna that is at an

exact frequency. The radio waves then move away from the source until the come into contact with an object. Upon hitting this object the radio waves are reflected and some of these reflected waves will find there way to the receiver part of the Radar. Stealth planes use this to avoid detection by minimizing the amount of radio waves that reflect of the plane. However there is always a small amount of reflection that will go back to the receiving station so stealth planes are not undetectable just extremely hard to detect. The receiver section of a monostatic radar is shaped like a 3D parabola with the detection part centered where the focus of the parabola is. This means that all available waves are directed to a single spot. However because the construction of these dishes cannot be 100% accurate there are slight inaccuracies in most dishes causing some radio waves to miss the focus point. The radio then transmits this to a computer that has timed the time it took for the radio wave to leave and then return. Highly accurate timers are required with radio because there is such a short time between the waves being sent and received. Then in modern Radars the clutter or undesired radio waves that are reflected from unwanted objects such as oceans, mountains and the atmosphere are discarded by using data processing techniques such as eliminating any of the radio waves that have not received the Doppler effect so only moving objects are shown. Then the distance between the object and the radar source are calculated by the equation d=1/2ct where d refers to the distance, c the speed of light and t time. The is in the equation because the time is what it took for the radio waves to hit the object and come back so by halving that you should get a roundabout the correct time.

Radar can also tell the way the object is moving using the Doppler Effect to determine this. If the radio wave that is received has an increased frequency but decreased wavelength then the object is going towards the receiver. However if the radio waves have increased in wavelength and decreased in frequency then the object is moving away. Radar uses many physics principles such as the Doppler Effect, reflection and the knowledge of the speed of sound waves. Without these physics priciniples Radar would not be able to detect anything. Bibliography Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar Science World http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Radar.html Meteorology Radar http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/radar/about/what_is_radar.sht ml Parabolic Radar http://www.radartutorial.eu/06.antennas/an10.en.html Radar Principles http://www.mit.edu/~lrv/cornell/publications/radar %20principles.pdf nd Andriessen. M (2004), Prelimanary Course Physics 2 Edition, John Wiley and Sons, Milton, Australia