Continuous Aperture Research Articles

Multi-input multi-output frequency-modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar system using beat-frequency division waveforms

Attention has been paid to lightweight, cost-effective frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in recent years. Though FMCW SAR can operate at high altitude, it is still impracticable for wide swath or high Doppler bandwidth remote sensing because of the dramatic losses of range resolution and processing gain. Moreover, the system sampling rate is too high for real-time processing. All these restrictions caused by the bandwidth loss of the dechirp operation can be relieved by expanding the system sweep cycle. However, the broadening of the sweep cycle decreases the system pulse repetition frequency with azimuth ambiguity, which can be suppressed by exploiting the spatial diversity of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. This paper reports a MIMO-FMCW SAR system using beat-frequency division waveforms. There is a small frequency interval and a large overlap (in frequency) between the orthogonal waveforms. As the frequency interval is much smaller than the signal bandwidth, the echoes that come from different transmitters can be separated by bandpass filtering with little intrapulse interference. Consequently, the applications of FMCW SAR systems can be extended for wider swath or higher Doppler bandwidth remote sensing. Theoretical analysis and simulation results illustrate the feasibility of this system.

ISOPHORIC ARRAY ANTENNAS WITH A LOW NUMBER OF CONTROL POINTS: A `SIZE TAPERED' SOLUTION

We propose a new architecture for array antennas able to achieve a high-gain performance by using a low number of elements and uniform-amplitude excitations. The solution is realized through a fast and deterministic design technique able to accurately emulate, by exploiting only the feeds' size as degree of freedom of the synthesis, 'ideal' continuous aperture sources fulfllling at best the assigned directivity requirements. The given theory is supported by numerical examples concerning the synthesis of isophoric direct radiating arrays devoted to a multibeam coverage of Europe from a geostationary satellite.

RCS of a Microstrip Leaky-Wave Antenna

The monostatic radar cross section (RCS) of a microstrip leaky-wave antenna (MLWA) is investigated. Both full-wave simulation and laboratory measurement are carried out to characterize its RCS as a function of frequency and aspect angle. Three distinct scattering features in the range-aspect plane are observed. By modeling the scattering mechanisms individually, the observed features can be clearly identified as the primary antenna mode scattering, higher-order bounce antenna mode scattering and structural mode scattering. The unique range-extended return due the antenna mode scattering is further interpreted using a time-of-arrival ray picture. It is shown that the extended range delay is directly attributable to the continuous aperture of the MLWA and the frequency-dependent group velocity of the leaky wave.

The Application of IBIS-L Remote Monitoring System for Micro Deformation of Terrain in Dam Safety Monitoring

IBIS-L is an advanced remote monitoring system based on microwave interferometer, which integrates the interferometric survey, stepped frequency- continuous wave and synthetic aperture radar. IBIS-L can do high precise, large range, Omni-directional, real-time and remote displacement monitoring. The system can be widely applied in the monitoring of small-displacement changes in the dam, mountain, slope, surface, buildings and bridges[1]. The monitoring technology can get the displacement changes of every part, analyze the deformation mechanism and characteristics and forecast the disaster of dangerous region timely. So it can provide a reliable basis for disaster prevention, greatly reducing or avoiding the loss on people's life and property. We introduce the external deformation monitoring process and outcome of IBIS-L in a hydropower station dam and provide a useful reference for the application of IBIS-L to the similar dam.

Efficient and precise frequency-modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar raw signal simulation approach for extended scenes

Frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system is widely used for earth observation and space detection, where short revisits time at low cost are desirable, or small size is required. Therefore a FMCW SAR raw signal simulator is required to quantitatively support the design of a SAR mission operating in the FMCW mode, to help mission planning, test processing algorithms and analyse jamming and noises. Time-domain SAR raw signal simulation can be easily conceived, but it is extremely time and memory consuming. In this study, an efficient FMCW SAR raw signal simulation approach for extended scene is proposed based on chirp-Z transform (CZT). This is the first time that a FMCW SAR simulator is proposed in the two-dimensional frequency domain. By taking advantage of fast Fourier transform, the proposed approach highly reduces the computational load with respect to the time domain approach. Furthermore, CZT algorithm can accurately simulate the range-variation of the range cell migration term, which guarantees the precision of the proposed approach. Wavenumber domain algorithm is applied to focus the conceived raw signal. Finally, point targets, the electromagnetic imaging and real FMCW image are used to validate the proposed simulation approach.

Features of formation of the patterns of a monopulse active phased array antenna with a dome lens

A method for the control of the transmission coefficients of antenna elements of a system comprising an active phased array antenna (APAA) and a dome lens, which ensures formation of a deep boresight null of the elevation difference pattern, is proposed. The effect of the control method on the characteristics of receiving monopulse channels of the APAA depending on the intrinsic noise of antenna elements is analyzed. The results of the well-known theory of reception of a nonplane wave by an antenna with continuous aperture are extended to the case of an array antenna.

Model and signal processing of bistatic frequency-modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar

Bistatic frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mounts the radar transmitter and receiver on separate platforms, which offers considerable capabilities, reliability and flexibility in designing FMCW SAR missions. Moreover, the spatial separation achieves better isolation between transmission and reception channels compared with the monostatic FMCW SAR where the two separate dedicated antennas are fixed on one platform. In this study, a bistatic FMCW SAR signal model is proposed to formulate the bistatic slant range history in bistatic FMCW configuration. Based on the preceding model, an approach is presented to deal with the double-square-root (DSR) term, and thus an accurate FMCW bistatic point target reference spectrum (BPTRS) is derived. Besides accurately addressing the signal characteristics of bistatic FMCW SAR, the proposed spectrum also significantly simplifies the signal processing of bistatic FMCW SAR, which will really push the applications of bistatic FMCW SAR in remote sensing fields. Furthermore, based on the proposed BPTRS, an extended inverse chirp-Z transform (EICZT) algorithm is proposed to process the bistatic FMCW SAR data by introducing a perturbation function to deal with the range-variance of second- and third-order range–azimuth coupling terms. Two simulation experiments are carried out to verify the accuracy of this novel formulation and highlight the performance of the proposed focusing approach.

An acousto-optic beamformer

There is a great variety of beamforming techniques that can be used for localization of sound sources. The differences among them usually lie in the array layout or in the specific signal processing algorithm used to compute the beamforming output. Any beamforming system consists of a finite number of transducers, which makes beamforming methods vulnerable to spatial aliasing above a certain frequency. The present work uses the acousto-optic effect, i.e., the interaction between sound and light, to localize sound sources in a plane. The use of a beam of light as the sensing element is equivalent to a continuous line aperture with an infinite number of microphones. This makes the proposed acousto-optic beamformer immune to spatial aliasing. This unique feature is illustrated by means of simulations and experimental results within the entire audible frequency range. For ease of comparison, the study is supplemented with measurements carried out with a line array of microphones.

Frequency-radial duality based photoacoustic image reconstruction

Photoacoustic image reconstruction algorithms are usually slow due to the large sizes of data that are processed. This paper proposes a method for exact photoacoustic reconstruction for the spherical geometry in the limiting case of a continuous aperture and infinite measurement bandwidth that is faster than existing methods namely (1) backprojection method and (2) the Norton-Linzer method [S. J. Norton and M. Linzer, "Ultrasonic reflectivity imaging in three dimensions: Exact inverse scattering solution for plane, cylindrical and spherical apertures," Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Trans. BME 28, 202-220 (1981)]. The initial pressure distribution is expanded using a spherical Fourier Bessel series. The proposed method estimates the Fourier Bessel coefficients and subsequently recovers the pressure distribution. A concept of frequency-radial duality is introduced that separates the information from the different radial basis functions by using frequencies corresponding to the Bessel zeros. This approach provides a means to analyze the information obtained given a measurement bandwidth. Using order analysis and numerical experiments, the proposed method is shown to be faster than both the backprojection and the Norton-Linzer methods. Further, the reconstructed images using the proposed methodology were of similar quality to the Norton-Linzer method and were better than the approximate backprojection method.

Broadband Substrate Integrated Waveguide 4$\,\times\,$4 Nolen Matrix Based on Coupler Delay Compensation

A broadband Nolen matrix in substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology is proposed and studied in this paper. Being feeding networks, Nolen matrices usually introduce significant phase dispersion in their standard form, thus limiting effective bandwidth. In this work, broadband frequency operation is achieved with adequate coupler delay compensation, resulting in a more parallel matrix topology. Consequently, H-plane couplers with continuous aperture are preferred in the proposed design as opposed to the cross-couplers previously used in the serial configuration. The SIW couplers and phase shifters of a balanced amplitude 4×4 Nolen matrix are designed at 77 GHz for radar applications. The resulting matrix that combines these elementary building blocks is fabricated and measured, and measured characteristics are in good agreement with theoretical and simulated predictions. This first design achieves excellent results over a 11.7% frequency bandwidth centered at 77 GHz. This modified Nolen matrix combines advantages of standard Nolen and Butler matrices and may be used as a building block for generalized orthogonal matrices.

Design of a Planar Slotted Waveguide Array Antenna for X-band Radar Applications

A planar slotted waveguide array antenna has been designed at 9.37 GHz for X-band radar applications. The antenna consists of multiple branchline waveguides with broadwall radiating shunt slots and a main waveguide to feed the branch waveguides through a series of inclined coupling slots. The antenna feed point is located at the center of the main waveguide. Element weights in the array have been calculated bysampling a continuous circular Taylor aperture distribution at the 25 dB sidelobe level in both the E and Hplanes. A commercially available electromagnetic (EM) simulation tool has been used to characterize the individual isolated slot and that data hassubsequently been used to design the planar array. The array is finally analyzed in a CST Microwave studio and the measured and simulated results have been found to be in good agreement.

Time-Domain Reconstruction Algorithms for FMCW-SAR

In this letter, we develop time-domain reconstruction algorithms for frequency-modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar (FMCW-SAR). The algorithms considered here are the time-domain correlation algorithm, and two versions of the backprojection algorithm: the standard one based on the start-stop approximation, and a modified version that takes into account the movement of the sensor during the transmission of the pulse. Numerical simulations illustrate the performance of the algorithms, showing that the start-stop approximation may not be valid for FMCW-SAR, whereas the modified backprojection algorithm works very well here.

Steered continuous wave Doppler methods and systems for two-dimensional ultrasound transducer arrays

Methods and systems for acquiring spectral and velocity information with a multi-dimensional array are provided. For example, a dedicated receive aperture is formed at a multi-dimensional array for steered continuous wave imaging. Other elements not within the dedicated receive aperture are used for transmitting continuous waves or transmitting and receiving pulsed waveforms in other modes of imaging. As another example, switches or other structures are provided for selecting between a plurality of possible apertures for a steered continuous wave aperture. The selection is performed in response to a configuration of an ultrasound system, such as selection of a focal location or steer direction. The aperture is then used for either transmit or receive operations of steered continuous wave imaging. As yet another example, at least part of the steered continuous wave beamformer is provided within a transducer assembly. The transducer assembly includes a probe housing and a connector housing electrically connected by a cable. In yet another example, at least one angle of a three-dimensional indication of flow direction is input from a user. Velocity values in either steered continuous wave imaging or pulsed wave imaging are corrected as a function of a three-dimensional indication of flow direction.

Continuous numerical aperture properties of a cylindrically polarized light illuminated sub-wavelength annular aperture

We investigated the process of focusing a radially polarized (RP) light beam through a sub-wavelength annular aperture (SAA). We found that the result was a non-diffraction doughnut-shaped light beam which propagates in free space. After analyzing the electric field component of the focus generated by the SAA structure, we identified the relationship between the focal field generated by the SAA. We then compared it to a case with a traditional objective lens. From our findings, we propose that a SAA structure can be viewed as a continuous numerical aperture optical element.

Rapid method for obtaining footprint patterns for very large antenna arrays

A new antenna pattern synthesis technique that allows the design of large planar antenna array radiating footprint patterns of a specified boundary with controlled ripple and sidelobe levels is presented. The method synthesises the desired footprint as a composition of a set of circular Taylor patterns appropriately weighted with the samples of the pattern obtained after stretching or shrinking a continuous circular aperture distribution developed by the Elliott-Stern method. A footprint of continental Europe radiated by a planar array with a large number of elements shows the technique's performance. The synthesis procedures were completed in about 1 s using a desktop computer.

Modified Frequency Scaling Algorithm for FMCW SAR Data Processing

This paper presents a modified frequency scaling algorithm for frequency modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar (FMCW SAR) data processing. The relative motion between radar and target in FMCW SAR during reception and between transmission and reception will introduce serious dilation in the received signal. The dilation can cause serious distortions in the reconstructed images using conventional signal processing methods. The received signal is derived and the received signal in range-Doppler domain is given. The relation between the phase resulting from antenna motion and the azimuth frequency is analyzed. The modified frequency scaling algorithm is proposed to process the received signal with serious dilation. The algorithm can effectively eliminate the impact of the dilation. The algorithm performances are shown by the simulation results.

ANALYSIS OF WAVEFORM ERRORS IN MILLIMETER-WAVE LFMCW SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR

In remote sensing applications, there is a special interest in the lightweight, cost effective, and high resolution imaging sensors. The combination of linearly frequency modulated continuous wave (LFMCW) technology and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technique can lead to such a sensor. This paper concentrates on the analysis of waveform errors in millimeter-wave (MMW) LFMCW SAR. The generating scheme of millimeter-wave LFMCW waveforms with phase locked loop (PLL) and direct digital synthesizer (DDS) combined frequency synthesizer is investigated. The impacts of quantization errors, spurs, and frequency nonlinearities are analyzed. Simulation results show that the quality of LFMCW waveforms has a direct influence on the SAR images. Hence a scheme of frequency synthesizer to achieve high performance MMW LFMCW waveform is proposed. This synthesizer driven by a DDS array can adaptive suppress the spurious level without degradation of excellent frequency linearity and fast switching speed.

Improved nonlinear frequency scaling algorithm for squint FMCW SAR

An improved nonlinear frequency scaling algorithm is proposed to process squint frequency modulated continuous wave synthetic aperture radar data. The algorithm uses a decimation technique to decrease the bandwidth of the signal introduced by the frequency scaling operation, effectively removing the range frequency aliasing. Simulated results show the validity of the algorithm.

Optimisation of beam pattern of high-altitude platform antenna using conventional beamforming

A method is proposed and applied for optimising beam patterns of a high-altitude platform antenna array. The method is composed of designing masking filters, calculating continuous aperture distributions and space-sampling at antenna elements. Compared with the uniform weighting, the proposed method can significantly suppress side lobes and control the shape and beamwidth of the beam pattern; this can greatly reduce cochannel interference for a cellular design on the ground. It is shown that this approach allows a 424-element antenna array to achieve a coverage performance similar to that previously reported for 121 directive aperture antennas, while such antennas are significantly more complicated in the terms of large size, huge weight and requiring mechanical steering.

Synthesis of Planar Arrays With Arbitrary Geometry Generating Arbitrary Footprint Patterns

An antenna synthesis technique for the design of planar antenna arrays of arbitrary geometry that radiate footprint patterns with specified contours is presented. It involves two steps. The first consists of obtaining a continuous circular aperture distribution that approximately affords the desired footprint pattern by truncating the corresponding Fourier series. In the second step this distribution is sampled at the array points and the array element excitations are then optimized by simulated annealing to improve the performance. The new technique is designed for synthesis of arrays confined to a limited area on the body of a satellite.