Near Range Radar and Its Application to Near Surface Geophysics and Disaster Mitigation

In this paper, we discuss about the near range radar applied to various environmental applications and disaster mitigation issues. Synthetic aperture radar（SAR） processing or migration is the key technology in near range radar imaging, which can be used in ground penetrating radar（GPR） and ground-based synthetic aperture radar（GB-SAR）. We demonstrate some applications which include GPR for humanitarian demining, GPR for archaeological survey, GB-SAR for landslide monitoring and nondestructive inspection of wooden buildings. We also demonstrate a new array GPR system “Yakumo”, which was used for archaeological survey for demonstration of advanced multi-static radar signal processing for better radar imaging.

3D motion and geometric information system of single-antenna radar based on incomplete 1D range data

A 3D motion and geometric information system of single-antenna radar is proposed,which can be supported by spotlight synthetic aperture radar（SAR） system and inverse SAR（ISAR） system involving relative 3D motion of the rigid target.In this system,applying the geometry invariance of the rigid target,the unknown 3D shape and motion of the radar target can be reconstructed from the 1D range data of some scatterers extracted from the high-resolution range image.Compared with the current 1D-to-3D algorithm,in the proposed algorithm,the requirement of the 1D range data is expanded to incomplete formation involving large angular motion of the target and hence,the quantity of the scatterers and the abundance of 3D motion are enriched.Furthermore,with the three selected affine coordinates fixed,the multi-solution problem of the reconstruction is solved and the technique of nonlinear optimization can be successfully utilized in the system.Two simulations are implemented which verify the higher robustness of the system and the better performance of the 3D reconstruction for the radar target with unknown relative motion.

Feature Extraction of Radar Range Profiles Based on Normalized Central Moments

The normalized central moments are widely used in pattern recognition because of scale and translation invariance. The moduli of normalized central moments of the 1-dimensional complex range profiles are used here as feature vector for radar target recognition. The common feature extraction method for high resolution range profile obtained by using Fourier-modified direct Mellin transform is inefficient and unsatisfactory in recognition rate And. generally speaking, the automatic target recognition method based on inverse synthetic aperture radar 2-dimensional imaging is not competent for real time object identification task because it needs complicated motion compensation which is sometimes too difficult to carry out. While the method applied here is competent for real-time recognition because of its computational efficiency. The result of processing experimental data indicates that this method is good at recognition.

Length estimation of extended targets based on bistatic high resolution range profile

The approach to estimate the length of extended targets by using the bistatic high resolution range profile（ H RRP） is analyzed in this paper. The relationship between the bistatic H RRP and the monostatic H RRP of extended targets are investigated. It is demonstrated by simulations that the target length measured by the bistatic H RRP is more meaningful and accurate than that by the monostatic HRRP,though the monostatic H RRP has been well developed and widely used in target recognizing and classification. The estimation results of a cone shaped target are present and compared at the end of the paper. To assure the reliability of the simulation,the bistatic H RRP is obtained through the scattering field data calculated by a fullwave numerical method,FE-BI-MLFMA.

Ultra-high range resolution demonstration of a photonics-based microwave radar using a high-repetition-rate mode-locked fiber laser

We experimentally demonstrate the ultra-high range resolution of a photonics-based microwave radar using a high repetition rate actively mode-locked laser（AMLL）. The transmitted signal and sampling clock in the radar originate from the same AMLL to achieve a large instantaneous bandwidth. A Ka band linearly frequency modulated signal with a bandwidth up to 8 GHz is successfully generated and processed with the electro-optical upconversion and direct photonic sampling. The minor lobe suppression（MLS） algorithm is adopted to enhance the dynamic range at a cost of the range resolution. Two-target discrimination with the MLS algorithm proves the range resolution reaches 2.8 cm. The AMLL-based microwave-photonics radar shows promising applications in high-resolution imaging radars having the features of high-frequency band and large bandwidth.

Stealth performance evaluation of helicopter against airborne early warning radar considering trimming control

Airborne pulse Doppler radar is a key threat to the military helicopter,and assessing the stealth performance of helicopter against airborne early warning radar is helpful to the helicopter’s stealth design and operational planning.In this paper,the Shooting and Bouncing Ray(SBR)and Uniform Theory of Diffraction(UTD)based high-frequency algorithms are used to calculate the Radar Cross Section(RCS)of helicopter,and the radar range equations are used to evaluate the stealth performance.In order to account for the effects of rotor flapping motions during actual flight,the aerodynamics model of whole helicopter is established and the attitudes and controls of helicopter at different flight states are trimmed and input into the RCS calculation module.The effects of helicopter flight speed,flying direction and operational environment on radar stealth performance are studied in focus.It is demonstrated by the results that the trimming control does have a great influence of more than 5 dB on the RCS of helicopter,and the introduction of the trim calculation brings the helicopter’s returns calculation closer to the reality.Variations in flight speed lead to the changes in the stealth performance of helicopter against Early Warning Aircraft(EWA),and the helicopter flight speed can be planned according to the operational requirements to minimize exposure distance or exposure time.Variations in flying direction mainly affect the detection properties of helicopter returns,and flying in the same direction with EWA usually gives the helicopter better low-observability than flying head-on.Variations in operational environment mainly affect the radar detection performance and the sensitivity of the detection performance to external factors;the same amount of change in some external factor causes a different amount of change in the helicopter’s detectability in different environments.

Multi-target real-time ranging with chaotic laser radar

We demonstrate the feasibility of multi-target real-time ranging with a chaotic laser radar. The used chaotic laser is emitted by a semiconductor laser with optical feedback. We design a proof-of-concept experiment based on the correlation detection and realize the range measurements of two targets simultaneously. The range resolution of 9 cm between two targets is achieved, which is limited by the bandwidth of the used real-time oscilloscope. A preliminary experiment of chaotic laser coherence is carried out to verify the high resolution of the chaotic lidar.