Ultra-wideband radar and location technology

Location and Timing Knowledge Transfer Network - 8th May 2008

Geoff Smithson

9 May 2008

Commercially Confidential

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Further developments

Cambridge Consultants has been developing impulse radar systems for 30 years
x-y 0 -5

Ice penetrating radar

TDR Level sensing

y cm

SAR systems

Traffic radar

-10 -15 -20 -25 -30 -35 -40 -45 10 20 30 40 50

Missile scoring radar

Automotive radar

PRISM-200 throughwall radar

1978

1990

2000

2007

Commercially Confidential

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Agenda:

1
2

What do we mean by ultra-wideband?

Applications of ultra-wideband radar 2.2 What is UWB radar? 2.1 2.2 2.3 Missile Scoring Automotive and Marine Through-Wall

3 5

Applications of ultra-wideband location 3.1 Short range indoor location

Commercially Confidential

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What do we mean by ultra-wideband?

The radar transmits a very short duration radio pulse, could be just a couple of cycles long for FAST MOVING targets or longer for SLOW MOVING targets. This has a short extent in space.
2ns 20ns (60cm 6m)

The radar transmits a continuous stream of pulses at a high rate

Commercially Confidential

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

For FAST MOVING target we use fixed range gates, each with a sampling receiver which opens for a very short time after each pulse, creating a very narrow detection shell.
transmitter

receiver

t1

rx

tx

Creates a range gate shell With distance defined by round-trip = C x t1= ellipsoid

3cm

Commercially Confidential

9 May 2008

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

The radar signature of a missile is captured as it passes through the very narrow detection shell.

Commercially Confidential

9 May 2008

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

In a scoring system:
22m

Each receiver channel has multiple range gates, with common foci at the transmit and receive antennas A central transmit antenna and a receive antenna on the nose create ellipsoidal range gates. When a missile passes, it crosses the range gates in sequence. Each range gate sees the missile twice.

18m 14m 10m 6m

Commercially Confidential

9 May 2008

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

The set of crossing times give a scalar score. Absolute distance measurement gives intuitive checking of results.

Miss-distance

Speed

Commercially Confidential

9 May 2008

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

To generate a vector score, multiple receivers are used. Spatially diverse receive antennas give range gates which are different shapes and offset in space. When a missile passes through the scoring volume, there is a sequence / timing of range gate crossing which is unique to that trajectory. The ground station inverts the set of crossing times to produce a vector.

Commercially Confidential

9 May 2008

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

For SLOW MOVING targets we use a single receive channel and sweep a range gate from short to long range. The Doppler frequency shift is created as the range gate passes across the object.
transmitter receiver
t1 t2

Detected at range 2

transmitter receiver
Detected at range 1

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What is ultra-wideband radar?

Measure angle to target in 2 axes using multiple receive antennas:

Target at angle 2

transmitter

receiver array

Target at angle 1

Through-wall radar, automotive radar and marine radar work like this

Commercially Confidential

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Agenda:

1 2

What do we mean by ultra-wideband? Applications of ultra-wideband radar 2.2 What is UWB radar? 2.1 2.2 2.3 Missile Scoring Automotive and Marine Through-Wall

3 5

Applications of ultra-wideband location 3.1 Short range indoor location

Commercially Confidential

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Missile scoring radar

ARMS-300 Vector scoring for full-scale and subscale targets

Commercially Confidential

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Missile scoring radar Mirach 100/5 target drone

Target drone with ARMS-300 vector scoring system installed. Antennas are diverse to measure missile angle of arrival.

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Missile scoring radar

Commercially Confidential

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Missile scoring radar

Commercially Confidential

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Missile scoring radar

Commercially Confidential

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Agenda:

What is ultra-wideband radar? Applications of ultra-wideband radar 2.2 What is UWB radar? 2.1 2.2 2.3 Missile Scoring Automotive and Marine Through-Wall

3 5

What is ultra-wideband location? 3.1 Short range indoor location

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Automotive radar

Automotive radar is a complete multi-channel 5.8GHz radar unit on a 170mm x 90mm board, weighing <100grammes
+12V DC in, list of tracked targets out (100Hz refresh), 5m or 30m range

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Automotive radar

Car safety pre-crash protection, reversing, blind-spot coverage, parking aid

Four sensors enable thirteen programmable alarm zones to be formed to support safety and convenience functions

Commercially Confidential

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Agenda:

What is ultra-wideband radar? Applications of ultra-wideband radar 2.2 What is UWB radar? 2.1 2.2 2.3 Missile Scoring Automotive and Marine Through-Wall

3 5

What is ultra-wideband location? 3.1 Short range indoor location

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Compact, high-performance through-wall radar

prism 200 through-wall radar uses this compact radar technology at lower centre frequency

Commercially Confidential

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Agenda:

1 2

What is ultra-wideband radar? Applications of ultra-wideband radar 2.2 What is UWB radar? 2.1 2.2 2.3 Missile Scoring Automotive and Marine Through-Wall

3 5

Applications of ultra-wideband location 3.1 Short range indoor location

Commercially Confidential

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Applications of ultra-wideband location

Co-operative systems can use a transmitter tag:

Base station Base station Transmitter 1 t1 t2

t3 Transmitter 2 Base station

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Applications of ultra-wideband location

Location Capability - UWB Location We have been working with Ubisense to provide the UWB location system that is central to their in-building location system
Accuracy ~15cm (95% confidence) using 5.7GHz to 7.2GHz frequency band Update rate in excess of ~40Hz >20 tags are able to be used simultaneously System minimises the cost of location infrastructure whilst maintaining accuracy Compact and low cost transmitter with transmit power ~15W FCC approved

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Conclusions

Ultra-wideband technology for radar and location applications

Enables the accurate detection and location of fast and slow moving objects The technology lends itself well to products and applications that use multiple, static, broad-beam antennas as opposed to narrow-beam mechanically scanned antennas Use of Doppler filtering enables discrimination between co-range targets A single omni directional transmit antenna and multiple spatially separated receive antennas enables accurate determination of 3-D bearing For slow moving systems a combination of a longer pulse length and a single swept range-gate can provide continuous coverage For fast moving targets a combination of a very short pulse length and a small number of fixed range gates can be used to provide sufficient information to reconstruct the targets trajectory without the need for continuous coverage

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Contact details:
Cambridge Consultants Ltd Science Park, Milton Road Cambridge, CB4 0DW England Tel: +44(0)1223 420024 Fax: +44(0)1223 423373 Registered No. 1036298 England info@CambridgeConsultants.com www.CambridgeConsultants.com Geoff Smithson Group Leader, Radio Sensing Group. Cambridge Consultants Inc 101 Main Street Cambridge MA 02142 USA Tel: +1 617 532 4700 Fax: +1 617 737 9889

2007 Cambridge Consultants Ltd, Cambridge Consultants Inc. All rights reserved.

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