Intrepid MicroTrack leaky cable sensor

Abstract

Intrepid MicroTrack is the first leaky coaxial cable sensor to utilize FM CW radar techniques to detect and locate intruders. The first leaky coaxial cable sensor, introduced at the 1976 Carnahan Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, used pulse radar techniques to detect and locate intruders. Since then, there have been numerous papers on CW leaky cable sensors that detect, but do not locate intruders. Like Southwest Microwave's MicroPoint, the acoustic cable sensor introduced at the 1994 Carnahan conference, MicroTrack offers several new features, including the ability to precisely locate intruders. These features greatly improve sensor performance. This paper describes the technology and its broad range of applications including buried, surface and barrier mounted. MicroTrack is an ultra wide band (UWB) HF terrain-following radar. FM CW radar techniques are well known and have been widely used in radio altimeters and police radar for many years. However, it is only with the advent of low cost direct digital synthesis (DDS) chips, high speed and high resolution analog to digital converters (ADC) and digital processing components that it is now practical to apply FM CW radar techniques to leaky cables. MicroTrack uses a fast Fourier transform (FFT) to translate the swept frequency response into precise target location. The frequency diversity associated with the ultra wide bandwidth assures uniform detection along the length of the sensor cable. MicroTrack complies with radio regulatory requirements for low power swept frequency field disturbance sensors in the HF band.