Abstract
Portable, low-cost, microwave radars have attracted researchers’ attention for being an alternative noncontact solution for structural condition monitoring. In addition, by leveraging their capability of providing the target velocity information, the radar-based remote monitoring of complex rotating structures can also be accomplished. Modern radar systems are compact, able to be easily integrated in sensor networks, and can deliver high accuracy measurements. This paper reviews the recent technical advances in low-cost Doppler radar systems for phase-demodulated displacement measurements and time-Doppler analysis for structural health information, including digital signal processing and emerging applications related to radar sensor networks.
Highlights
Radars have been employed since 1940s as surveillance systems [1]
By transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves at microwave frequencies, they can remotely detect small displacements of targets using the interferometric technique, and they are able to distinguish the real displacement of targets of interest from clutter since the vast majority of groundbased interferometric (GBI) radar systems employs stepped-frequency continuous-wave (SFCW) or frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar sensors
To address the challenge of simultaneously measuring displacements along different directions, the most recent work on Structural health monitoring (SHM) based on GBI radars proposed a multi-monostatic 17.2-GHz FMCW radar for the remote monitoring of bridges [55]
Summary
Radars have been employed since 1940s as surveillance systems [1]. In the past, they were mainly used in the military due to high costs and bulky sizes. By transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves at microwave frequencies, they can remotely detect small displacements of targets using the interferometric technique, and they are able to distinguish the real displacement of targets of interest from clutter since the vast majority of GBI radar systems employs stepped-frequency continuous-wave (SFCW) or frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar sensors. To address the challenge of simultaneously measuring displacements along different directions, the most recent work on SHM based on GBI radars proposed a multi-monostatic 17.2-GHz FMCW radar for the remote monitoring of bridges [55]. They employed two different interferometric radars placed at different positions to measure two components of a bridge’s deck motion.
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