Advanced Developments in Radar Technology Training

Advanced Developments in Radar Technology Training provide students who already have a basic understanding of radar a valuable extension into the newer capabilities being continuously pursued in our fast-moving field. While the course begins with a quick review of fundamentals – this is to establish a common base for the instruction to follow – it is best suited for the student who has taken one of the several basic radar courses available.

In each topic, the method of instruction is first to establish firmly the underlying principle, and only then are the current achievements and challenges addressed. Treated are such topics as pulse compression in which matched filter theory, resolution, and broadband pulse modulation are briefly reviewed, and then the latest code optimal searches and hybrid coding and code-variable pulse bursts are explored. Similarly, radar polarimetry is reviewed in principle, then the application to image processing (as in Synthetic Aperture Radar work) is covered. Doppler processing and its application to SAR imaging itself, then 3D SAR, the moving target problem, and other target signature work are also treated this way. Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) is introduced; the resurgent interest in bistatic radar is discussed.

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Introduction and Background.

• The nature of radar and the physics involved.
• The concepts and tools required were briefly reviewed.
• Directions took in radar development and the technological advances permitting them.
• Further concepts and tools are more elaborate.

Advanced Developments in Radar Technology Training – Advanced Signal Processing.

• Review of developments in pulse compression (matched filter theory, modulation techniques, the search for optimality) and in Doppler processing (principles, “coherent” radar, vector processing, digital techniques); establishing resolution in time (range) and in frequency (Doppler).
• Recent considerations in hybrid coding, shaping the ambiguity function.
• Target inference. Use of high range and high Doppler resolution: example and experimental results.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).

• Fundamentals reviewed, 2-D and 3-D SAR, example image.
• Developments in image enhancement. The dangerous point-scatterer assumption. Autofocusing methods in SAR, ISAR imaging. The ground moving target problem.
• Polarimetry and its application in SAR. Review of polarimetry theory. Polarimetric filtering: the whitening filter, the matched filter. Polarimetric-dependent phase unwrapping in 3D IFSAR.
• Image interpretation: target recognition processes reviewed.

A “Radar Revolution” the Phased Array.

• The all-important antenna. General antenna theory was quickly reviewed. Sidelobe concerns, suppression techniques. Ultra-low sidelobe design.
• The phased array. Electronic scanning, methods, typical componentry. Behavior with scanning, the impedance problem, and matching methods. The problem of bandwidth; time-delay steering. Adaptive patterns, adaptivity theory, and practice. Digital beam forming. The “active” array.
• Phased array radar, system considerations.

Advanced-Data Processing.

• Detection in clutter, threshold control schemes, CFAR.
• Background analysis: clutter statistics, parameter estimation, clutter as a compound process.
• Association, contacts to tracks.
• Track estimation, filtering, adaptivity, and multiple hypothesis testing.
• Integration: multi-radar, multi-sensor data fusion, in both detection and tracking, greater use of supplemental data, augmenting the radar processing.

Other Topics.

• Bistatics, the resurgent interest. Review of the basics of bistatic radar, challenges, and early experiences. New opportunities: space; terrestrial. Achievements reported.
• Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP), airborne radar emphasis.
• Ultra-wideband short pulse radar, various claims (well-founded and not); an example UWB SAR system for good purpose.
• Concluding the discussion, course review.

Advanced Developments in Radar Technology Training Course Wrap-Up