RADAR ENGINEERING

(Lecture notes by Prof.A.Sesha Rao, Dept. of ECE, VIIT)

UNIT – I

BASICS

Velocity of EM wave / light in space : 3 × 108m/sec

Velocity of sound in space : 330 m/sec
Velocity of sound in sea water : 1500 m/sec
Velocity of sound in metals : more than 1500 m/sec

Transverse waves: Waves in which the vibration or displacement takes place in a plane at right
angles to the direction of propagation of the wave. Eg: Electromagnetic waves.

Longitudinal waves: Waves in which the vibration or displacement takes place in the direction
of propagation of the waves. Eg: sound waves.

1.1 INTRODUCTION: NATURE OF RADAR

 The term RADAR is a contraction of the words Radio Detection And Ranging.
 The word RADAR came into existence from 1941. The architect is Christian Halsmen.
 Radar is an electromagnetic system for the detection and location of reflecting objects
such as aircraft, ship etc.
 It operates by radiating energy into space and detecting the echo signal reflected from the
target or the object.
 The reflected energy indicates presence of target and location of target when compared
with the transmitted energy.
 It can operate in darkness, fog, rain and snow.
 Two basic radar systems exists: Monostatic system and Bistatic system.
 Monostatic radar systems uses same antenna for transmission and reception.
 Bistatic radar systems uses two separate antennas for these functions.

Basic Principle of Radar is explained with the figure.

1.2 Range to a Target:
 Signal is a rectangular shaped pulses modulating a sine wave carrier. T R is the time taken
by the radar signal to the target and back. The time for the signal to travel to the target at
a range R and return back to the radar is 2 R/C, the range R is given as

1.3 Maximum unambiguous Range:

 The rate at which pulses transmitted is determined by longest range.
 If the time between pulses TP is too short, an echo signal from a long range target might
arrive after the transmission of the next pulse. This result in ambiguous measurement of
the range.
 The echoes arrive after the transmission of the next pulse are called ‘second-time-around
echoes’ and from earlier pulses are called ‘multiple-time-around-around-echoes’.
 Such an echo may mislead as if at a closer range than actual range.
 The range beyond which targets appear as second-time-around echoes is the ‘maximum
unambiguous range’ Run is given by

TP : Pulse repetition period (PRP)

fP : Pulse repetition frequency (PRF)

Fig 1.2 : plot of equation (1.2), the maximum unambiguous range R un as a function of the pulse
repetition frequency TP.
1.4 Radar Waveforms:

 Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF): The number of radar pulses transmitted per second is
known as pulse repetition frequency(PRF) or pulse repetition rate (PRR)
 Pulse Repetition Time (PRT): The time from beginning of first pulse to the beginning of
the next is called as pulse repetition time (PRT).
PRT = 1/PRF
 Pulse width (PW) : The duration of transmitted pulse is called as pulse width (PW).
 Rest time or Receive Time : The time between the two successive transmitted pulses is
called as ‘rest time’ or ‘receive time’.
 Duty cycle: Duty cycle is defined as the ratio of total time radar is radiating to the total
time it could have radiated.

Fig-1.3: Example of a pulse waveform with ‘typical’ values for a medium range air-surveillance
radar. The rectangular pulses represent pulse-modulated sine waves.

Peak power Pt = 1mw, pulse width τ = 1μs

PRT Tp = 1ms = 1000μs
 fp = 1000Hz
CT p
Rμn = = 3 x 108 x 10-3/2 = 3 x 105 /2 = 150Km
2
Pt 10 6  10 6
Average power  Ptf p   1000  1Kw
Tp 10 3
 10 6
Duty cycle =   0.001
Tp 10 3
Energy of the pulse = Pt  10  10  1 joule
6 6

 When the pulse width τ is 1µs, the waveform extends in space

= 10-6 × 3 × 108 = 300 m
 Very long pulse is needed for long range radars to achieve sufficient energy. Long pulse
have poor resolution.
  Frequency or phase modulation to increase the spectral width of a long pulse to obtain the
resolution of a short pulse. This is called pulse compression.
 Pulse radars that extract the Doppler frequency shift are called moving target indicator
(MTI) or pulse Doppler radar.
 MTI → Low PRF and low duty cycle
 Pulse Doppler radar → high PRF and high duty cycle.

1.5 Simple form of Radar Equation:

 Pt is transmitter power radiated by an isotropic antenna uniformly in all directions. P t in

watts.
 Power density at a range R from an isotropic antenna


Maximum gain of antenna

G = Max.power density radiated by a directive antenna / power density radiated
by a lossless isotropic antenna with the same power input
 Power density at a range R from a directive antenna


Radiated power density back at the radar

Where σ is radar gross section defined as the power density

returned to the radar for a particular power density incident
on the target.
 The received signal power

Where Ae = effective area of the receiving antenna

Ae = ρaA where ρa = antenna aperture efficiency
A = Physical area
 Minimum detectable signal Smin = Pr
 

Sa
me antenna for Tx& Rx, then

 Equations (1.7), (1.9), (1.10) are same. Equation (1.9) shows Rmax varies as λ1/2 where as
equation (1.10) shows Rmax varies as λ -1/2 which is just contrasting. Also eqn (1.7) shows
it is independent of λ. The correct interpretations
 Whether the antenna gain is held constant with change in λ or f. by eqn (1.9)
 Effective area is held constant. By eqn(1.10)
 To be independent of frequency, two antennas are to be used. By eqn(1.7)

1.6 Radar Block diagram and operation:

Fig.1.4 Block diagram of a conventional pulse radar with a super heterodyne receiver.
 The radar signal is produced at low power by a waveform generator.
 This is the input to the power amplifier
 Pulse modulator turns on and off of the power amplifier.
 The output of the power amplifier / transmitter is delivered to the antenna.

Transmitter antenna Here EM wave is radiated to space

Wave guide/
Transmission line
 Duplexer allows a single antenna to be used on a time shared basis both for Transmission
& Reception.
 On reception, duplexer directs echo to the receiver.
 Receiver is almost a ‘superheterodyne receiver’.
 The input or RF stage of receiver can be a low noise amplifier. The mixer and LO
convert RF to an IF where amplified. The IF amplifier is designed as a matched filter.
 Matched filter maximizes the output peak-signal-to-mean-noise ratio.
 Matched filter maximizes the echo signal and attenuates noise [ IF = 30 MHz or 60
MHz]
 Receiver Bτ ~ 1
 IF is followed by a second detector or demodulator to extract the signal from carrier.
 Combination of IF ampl + 2nd detector + video ampl
acts as
Envelop detector
 In Doppler radars envelope detector is replaced by phase detector.
 Threshold is to be varied adaptively to maintain CFAR.
 Many echo pulses received from target and these are added to improve S/N ratio. This is
called integration.

1.7 Radar Frequencies:

 Radars operate at microwave frequencies region.

  The letter designations such as S, X and L are used to denote the specific range of
frequencies.
 IEEE standard radar – frequency, letter band nomenclature

Band
Nominal frequency
Designation
HF 3 – 30 MHz
VHF 30 – 300 MHz
UHF 300 - 1000 MHz
L 1 -2 GHz
S 2 – 4 GHz
C 4 – 8 GHz
X 8 – 12 GHz
KU 12-18 GHz
K 18 – 27 GHz
Ka 27 – 40 GHz
V 40 – 75 GHz
W 75 – 110 GHz
mm 110 – 300 GHz

(Table – 1: IEEE Standard Radar frequencies)

1.8 Applications of Radar:

 Military: For air defence systems as well as for operation of offensive missiles and other
weapons. For surveillance weapon control. For target detection tracking. For
reconnaissance.
  Remote sensing: All radars are remote sensors. Weather observation, planetary
observation, short range below ground probing, mapping of sea ice to route ships.
 Air Traffic Control (ATC): For safety control of air traffic (ASR). For mapping regions
of rain, terminal Doppler.
 Low enforcement and highway safety: Radar speed meter to avoid collisions of
vehicles, to avoid intruders.
 Aircraft safety and Navigation: Low flying terrain avoidance, ground mapping, radio
altimeter to measure height.
 Ship safety: to avoid collision when visibility is poor
 Space: Radars for rendezvous and docking and also for landing, detection and tracking of
space craft.
 Others: Oil and gas exploration.

Problems:

Example – 1.1 : What is the duty cycle of radar with a pulse width of 4 µ sec and a pulse
repetition time of 8 m sec?

Ans :0.0005

Example – 1.2 : A radar is to have a maximum range of 300 km. What is the maximum
allowable PRF unambiguous reception?

Ans:5 PPS(Parts Per Second)

Example – 1.3: Calculate the maximum range of radar which operates at a frequency of 10GHz,
peak pulse power of 600 KW. If the antenna effective area is 5m 2 and the area of target is 20m 2,
minimum receivable power is 10-13 watt.

Ans: 717 KM

Example – 1.4: A marine radar operating at 10GHz has a maximum range of 50 km with an
antenna gain of 4000. If the transmitter has a power of 250 KW and minimum detectable signal
of 10-11W. Determine the cross section of the target the radar can sight.

Ans:34.45m2