Radar Scheme Research Articles

Photonic generation of dual-band triangular chirps utilizing a monolithic integrated mutual injection laser and application in radars.

We propose and demonstrate a dual-band microwave photonic radar scheme based on a monolithic integrated mutual injection laser. Based on the photon-photon resonance (PPR) and the gain switching effect of the integrated laser, the C-/X-band triangular chirp signals with high-quality and comparable power at 4.75-5.25 GHz and 9.5-10.5 GHz are generated. In the current proof-of-concept experiment, the range resolution of the dual-band chirp signals can reach 16.9 cm, compared with the single-band chirp signal that cannot distinguish the targets. Through the application of a single integrated device and a transceiver module sharing a set of antennas, the dual-band microwave photonic radar system scheme improves the system integration.

Fast 3D positioning based on a simplified THz photonic stereo ISAR system.

In this work, a THz stereo inverse synthetic aperture radar scheme based on photonics is proposed, and proof-of-concept experimentally demonstrated, achieving high resolution and fast three-dimensional (3D) positioning of multiple targets. An optical frequency comb and a uni-traveling carrier photodiode are employed to photonically generate a linear frequency-modulation signal at 300-320GHz. By two incoherent measurements at different angles with one pair of antennas, 3D positioning of plane reflectors over a distance of 0.6m is successfully accomplished, achieving a resolution of 7.5mm for both range and azimuth dimensions, and a maximum experimental height error of 4mm.

ДІАГНОСТИКА МОРСЬКОГО ХВИЛЮВАННЯ ЗА РАДІОВИПРОМІНЮВАННЯМ ШТУЧНИХ СУПУТНИКІВ ЗЕМЛІ В РІЗНИХ ЧАСТОТНИХ ДІАПАЗОНАХ

Subject and Purpose. The present paper is concerned with sea wave diagnostics by signals from artificial satellites in a bistatic radar scheme using the grazing radio-wave propagation and a diffuse component of the signal reflected off the sea surface. The possibility is considered to expand the range of sea state diagnostics by using satellite emissions in different frequency regions. Methods and Methodology. The research is based on the data of field experiments using over-the-horizon navigation satellites of the first (Transit) and second (GPS) generations. The data processing is by the methods of moving average and moving mean square deviation adopted because of the dynamic character of the experiments given the moving source presence. The sea surface state in a particular experiment is estimated by the diffuse component extracted from the total experimental signal. A comparative analysis of the diffuse component parameters is carried out by computer modeling at various wavelengths, source elevation angles and root- mean-squared wave heights. Results. For both satellite systems GPS and Transit, the experimental results show that in the calm and moderate states of the sea surface, the diffuse component intensity of signal fluctuations caused by sea waves differ significantly and fit in with the model upon the Rayleigh Roughness Criterion. On this basis, an advantage can be taken from the satellite emissions in various frequency ranges to expand the scale of sea state diagnostics. The higher-frequency region therewith offers a more accurate yet more limited scale of the sea state measured. The addition of lower-frequency emissions expands the scale of sea state diagnostics towards the severe states. Conclusions. It has been determined that the range of sea state diagnostics can be expanded by using satellite emissions in different frequency regions.

A Deep Learning-Augmented Stand-Off Radar Scheme for Rapidly Detecting Tree Defects

A Deep Learning-Augmented Stand-Off Radar Scheme for Rapidly Detecting Tree Defects

Feasibility Analysis of Microwave Radar Scheme for Tsunami Fast Warning

Feasibility Analysis of Microwave Radar Scheme for Tsunami Fast Warning

Analysis of rotational Doppler shift with multi-ring vortex beams.

Vortex beams (VBs) with orbital angular momentum have shown great potential in the detection of transverse rotational motion of spatial targets which is undetectable in the classical radar scheme. However, most of the reported rotational Doppler measurements based on VBs can only be realized under ideal experimental conditions. The long-range detection is still a challenge. The detection distance based on rotational Doppler effect (RDE) is mainly limited by the scattered signal's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this work, we investigated the influence of multi-ring vortex beams (MVBs) on the rotational Doppler frequency spectrum of scattered light from an object based on RDE and proposed a method of SNR enhancement of RDE signal. Firstly, different types of MVBs composed of a set of single-ring VBs with the same topological charge and different radii are designed, including multi-ring Laguerre Gaussian beam (MLGB), multi-ring perfect vortex beams (MPVB), and high-order Laguerre Gaussian beam (HLGB). Then, the influence of the number of rings and radial radius interval on the intensity profiles of MVBs and rotational Doppler frequency spectra under aligned and misaligned conditions is studied in detail. And the reasons why different types of MVBs lead to different SNR enhancement effectiveness with the increase of rings are also analyzed theoretically. Finally, proof-of-concept experiments were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the SNR enhancement method for RDE signals. The results showed that the amplitudes of the Doppler spectra generated by the MLGB and MPVB are improved substantially with the increase of rings, but the enhancement effect caused by the former is superior to the latter. The gain of HLGB on the RDE signal is the lowest. This study provides a useful reference for the optimization of rotational Doppler detection systems and may be of great application value in telemetry, long-range communication and optical imaging.

Evaluation on quantum illumination radar with quantum limited amplification.

Based on Quantum illumination (QI) protocol, researcshers have developed prototypes of quantum radar and demonstrated its quantum enhancement. Nevertheless, there are still difficulties in the practical application for QI radar, especially the trade-off between the detection range and quantum enhancement, as well as the construction of the optimized receiver. Some studies have suggested that the potential solutions to these difficulties are to deploy the quantum limited amplifiers in QI radars, and have envisioned different amplification schemes. In this paper, we establish a universal and effective method to evaluate the signal-to-noise ratio of QI radar. It connects QI radar theory with classical radar signal processing theory, providing support for researchers to evaluate the performance of various QI radar schemes from a radar perspective. Based on this method, we prove that any quantum limited phase-insensitive amplification scheme will seriously weaken the quantum enhancement of QI radar. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that the QI radar with phase-sensitive amplified idler has no advantage over the optimal classical illumination. These results can help us avoid some unreasonable QI radar schemes. In addition, we believe that the proposed method can also be applied to explore other potential QI radar schemes and contribute to promoting the application development of QI radar.

Entanglement-assisted multi-aperture pulse-compression radar for angle resolving detection

Entanglement has been known to boost target detection, despite it being destroyed by lossy-noisy propagation. Recently, Zhuang and Shapiro (2022 Phys. Rev. Lett. 128 010501) proposed a quantum pulse-compression radar to extend entanglement’s benefit to target range estimation. In a radar application, many other aspects of the target are of interest, including angle, velocity and cross section. In this study, we propose a dual-receiver radar scheme that employs a high time-bandwidth product microwave pulse entangled with a pre-shared reference signal available at the receiver, to investigate the direction of a distant object and show that the direction-resolving capability is significantly improved by entanglement, compared to its classical counterpart under the same parameter settings. We identify the applicable scenario of this quantum radar to be short-range and high-frequency, which enables entanglement’s benefit in a reasonable integration time.

Photonic THz InISAR for 3D Positioning With High Resolution

Terahertz (THz) radar has been considered as a new solution to the dilemmas in performing ultra-high-resolution imaging and obtaining highly precise target information. In this work, a photonic THz interference inverse synthetic aperture radar (THz InISAR) scheme is proposed and proof-of-concept experimentally demonstrated, targeting high resolution positioning of multiple targets. We employ an optical frequency comb and a uni-traveling carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) to photonically generate a linear frequency-modulation (LFM) signal at 290-310 GHz. By using the anti-electromagnetic-interference THz photonic signal source, broadband THz transceivers and efficient InISAR algorithms, 3D positioning of corner reflectors over a distance of 2.2 m at the 300 GHz band is successfully achieved, reaching a resolution of 8 mm for both range and azimuth dimensions, and a maximum height error of 0.4 mm in a height range of 11 cm. To the best of our knowledge, our proposed system represents the ever-first accurate 3D positioning at the THz band above 300 GHz, revealing the great potential applications of THz radar systems.

Nonlinear Frequency Offset Beam Design for FDA-MIMO Radar.

The beam pattern of frequency diversity array (FDA) radar has a range-angle two-dimensional degree of freedom, which makes it possible to distinguish different targets from the same angle and brings a new approach to anti-jamming of radars. However, the beam pattern of conventional linearly frequency-biased FDA radar is range-angle-coupled and time-varying. The method of adding nonlinear frequency bias among the array elements of the FDA array has been shown to eliminate this coupling property while still allowing for better beam performance of the emitted beam. In this paper, we obtain a decoupled and time-invariant beam direction map using the FDA-multi-input-multi-output (FDA-MIMO) radar scheme and then obtain a sharp pencil-shaped main sphere beam pattern with range-angle dependence using a linear frequency offset scheme weighted by a Chebyshev window. Finally, the anti-interference performance of the proposed method is verified in an anti-interference experiment.

ICI-Robust Transceiver Design for Integration of MIMO-OFDM Radar and MU-MIMO Communication

By virtue of the low cost and flexible deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are becoming the most promising platform for active radar sensing to find targets in shaded areas and build a temporary communication infrastructure at disaster sites. Radar and wireless communication are essential functions for reliable control of UAVs and real-time exchange of sensed measurements. However, due to the limited payload and power budget of UAVs, it is impossible to mount two individual radar and communication systems, especially on small- or medium-sized UAVs. Recently, joint communication and radar (JCR) systems have emerged as a breakthrough, which perform the communication and radar functions simultaneously on the same hardware platform. Compared to a simple combination of individual communication and radar systems, a UAV JCR system can minimize the implementation cost, power consumption, payload, and radio resource usage. This paper proposes transmit beamformer and receive beamformer designs for a UAV network composed of a UAV JCR base station, a target, and multiple user equipments. Specifically, the UAV transmits an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-modulated waveform with transmit and receive beamforming to perform multi-input multi-output (MIMO) radar and multiuser-MIMO (MU-MIMO) communication functions simultaneously. Unlike the previous OFDM radar scheme that employs the communication symbol repetition method, a novel receive beamformer design is proposed to resolve the inter-carrier interference problem in the range/velocity estimation process, which therefore does not sacrifice the communication transmission rate. As a result, simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves a higher radar signal-to-clutter ratio while achieving a higher communication sum-rate than existing schemes.

A Novel Time Domain Model for Permittivity and Thickness Measurement

Motivated by the necessity of acquiring wall parameters for through-the-wall radar, a novel and general time domain model is proposed to measure the thickness and permittivity of single-layered slab-shaped materials, by exploiting the delays of the two surface reflections in the bistatic radar scheme. First, the two surface delays are formulated as functions of the unknown permittivity and thickness, as well as the accessible incident angle, and a nonlinear equation set is formed. Then based on a geometric analysis, in two separate bistatic delay tests with different antenna separations and standoff distances, the condition of identical incident angle is established. As such, the intra-wall delay is the same for the two delay tests, leading to a significant simplification and a closed-form solution to the equation set. Finally, a three-antenna test setup is constructed, with which the desired parameters can be acquired conveniently and accurately by performing bistatic tests at a set of standoff distances. Simulation and experiment show that our method can achieve high accuracy and strong robustness against noise.

MetaRadar: Multi-Target Detection for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Aided Radar Systems

As a widely used localization and sensing technique, radars will play an important role in future wireless networks. However, the wireless channels between the radar and the targets are passively adopted by traditional radars, which limits the performance of target detection. To address this issue, we propose to use the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to improve the detection accuracy of radar systems due to its capability to customize channel conditions by adjusting its phase shifts, which is referred to as MetaRadar. In such a system, it is challenging to jointly optimize both radar waveforms and RIS phase shifts in order to improve the multi-target detection performance. To tackle this challenge, we design a waveform and phase shift optimization (WPSO) algorithm to effectively solve the multi-target detection problem, and also analyze the performance of the proposed MetaRadar scheme theoretically. Simulation results show that the detection performance of the MetaRadar scheme is significantly better than that of the traditional radar schemes.

Detection of Electronic Devices Using FMCW Nonlinear Radar.

Nonlinear radars can be utilized to detect electronic devices, which are difficult to detect with conventional radars due to their small radar cross sections (RCS). Since the receiver in a nonlinear radar is designed to only receive harmonic or intermodulated echoes from electronic devices, it is able to separate electronic devices from non-electronic scatters (clutter) by rejecting their echoes at fundamental frequencies. This paper presents a harmonic-based nonlinear radar scheme utilizing frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) signals for the detection of various electronic devices at short range. Using a laboratory experiment setup for FMCW radar at S-band for Tx (C-band for Rx), measurements are carried out to detect electronic devices of various sizes. The results show that the detection of small electronic devices is possible with nonlinear FMCW radar when appropriate system parameters are selected. Furthermore, we also discuss the maximum detectable range estimation for electronic targets using the radar range equation for FMCW nonlinear radar.

Radar Scheme With Raised Reflector for NLOS Vehicle Detection

The employment of passive reflectors enables the millimeter-wave automotive radars to detect an approaching vehicle in non-line-of-sight conditions. In this paper, the installation of such reflectors above the sidewalk at an intersection is proposed and studied, avoiding pedestrians’ blockage and road dust effect at ground level. Through the analysis of the backscattering power, it is shown that the suggested scheme may detect an approaching vehicle in the blind zone at distances of 30…50 m to the intersection point. Additionally, the analysis shows that efficient operation is highly dependent on the spatial orientation and size of the reflector. Even a few degrees rotation may change the detecting range by several meters. In turn, the larger area of the reflector may cover longer detecting distances, improving the radar scheme’s overall performance. It is also shown that further performance enhancement can be achieved by employing a C-type radar, contributing an extra 5 dB to the backscattering power relative to an A-type radar. However, despite these improvements, the strongest scattering centre of the detectable vehicle is systematically identified to the bumper zone.

A New Side-Looking Scheme for Speed Estimation and Detection of Tangential Slow-Moving Targets.

A single-beam radar system cannot adopt a side-looking installation scheme, which is completely perpendicular to the moving direction of the target in an intelligent transportation system (ITS), because of its own limitations. In this paper, a side-looking radar velocity measurement system that utilizes a new signal processing method and multi-channel radar scheme is proposed. Constant false alarm rate (CFAR) and generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) detectors are used to detect the data processing results in different stages in order to reduce the false alarm rate of targets. At the same time, a deconvolution-based clutter map algorithm is proposed to solve the problem of clutter interference in the test environment, and its theoretical performance is verified by simulation. Finally, 77 G commercial radar is used to test the system, and the results show that this algorithm can effectively detect and accurately estimate the speed of tangential low-speed targets under clutter interference.

Entanglement-Assisted Joint Monostatic-Bistatic Radars.

With the help of entanglement, we can build quantum sensors with sensitivity better than that of classical sensors. In this paper we propose an entanglement assisted (EA) joint monostatic-bistatic quantum radar scheme, which significantly outperforms corresponding conventional radars. The proposed joint monostatic-bistatic quantum radar is composed of two radars, one having both wideband entangled source and EA detector, and the second one with only an EA detector. The optical phase conjugation (OPC) is applied on the transmitter side, while classical coherent detection schemes are applied in both receivers. The joint monostatic-bistatic integrated EA transmitter is proposed suitable for implementation in LiNbO3 technology. The detection probability of the proposed EA joint target detection scheme outperforms significantly corresponding classical, coherent states-based quantum detection, and EA monostatic detection schemes. The proposed EA joint target detection scheme is evaluated by modelling the direct radar return and forward scattering channels as both lossy and noisy Bosonic channels, and assuming that the distribution of entanglement over idler channels is not perfect.

An RF-Source-Free Reconfigurable Microwave Photonic Radar With High-Resolution and Fast Detection Capability

This paper presents a novel microwave photonic (MWP) radar scheme that is capable of optically generating and processing broadband linear frequency-modulated (LFM) microwave signals without using any radio-frequency (RF) sources. In the transmitter, a broadband LFM microwave signal is generated by controlling the period-one (P1) oscillation of an optically injected semiconductor laser. After targets reflection, photonic de-chirping is implemented based on a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DMZM), which is followed by a low-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital signal processer (DSP) to reconstruct target information. Without the limitations of external RF sources, the proposed radar has an ultra-flexible tunability, and the main operating parameters are adjustable, including the central frequency, bandwidth, frequency band, and temporal period. In the experiment, a fully photonics-based radar with a bandwidth of 4 GHz is established for high-resolution and fast detection. The results show that a high range resolution reaching ∼1.88 cm, and a two-dimensional (2D) imaging resolution as high as ∼1.88 cm × ∼2.00 cm is achieved with a sampling rate of 100 MSa/s in the receiver. The flexible tunability of the radar is also experimentally demonstrated. The proposed radar scheme features low cost, simple structure, and high reconfigurability, which may pave the way for future multifunction adaptive and miniaturized radars.

Cooperative Range and Angle Estimation With PA and FDA Radars

Target localization with unambiguous range and angle estimation of the signal-of-interest is a key task of a radar system, especially for wide region surveillance. In this article, we develop a novel dual-mode array radar scheme, namely phased array and frequency diverse array cooperated radar, to provide unambiguous range and angle estimation. Our approach combines the advantages of the PA in high transmit gain and that of the FDA in resolving range ambiguity. In general, two kinds of cooperative parameter estimation algorithms are derived to determine the range and angle parameters jointly. The proposed algorithms can be interpreted as different combination methods of the PA and FDA, including the uniform combination and weighted combination based on weighted least squares, where the weight is designed with user tunable angle parameters. Particularly, the design criterion for the tunable parameter is given. At the analysis stage, the Cramér–Rao bounds are studied to verify the performance of parameter estimation. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of parameter estimation with the dual-mode array radar.

Time-Division Multiple Tags Based Multitarget Respiration Monitoring Radar With a Single Beam

A novel multitarget respiration monitoring radar scheme based on time-division multiple tags (TDMTs) is proposed. The key innovation in this letter is the introduction of the TDMT, which leverages the frequency-division characteristic of multiple frequency-tunable tags attached on different human bodies to implement the time division of the reflected beat signals in frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) system, which is used to separate respiration signals from two closely spaced human targets. To validate the proposed scheme, a radar prototype and two tunable tags have been developed. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method by monitoring two closely spaced targets in indoor environment.