Abstract
Neither Christian Hülsmeyer , the “unlucky” (in the sense that his environment was not ready to accept his invention) inventor of the radar, nor the researchers and the technicians from different nations who, immediately prior to and during the Second World War, have developed the radar and made it operational, could never have imagined the present broad diffusion of radar techniques up to the mass market in the automotive and naval domains. And nobody, at least until the 1960s, could ever have imagined that, from the early display of the intensity of the echo on a cathode ray tube, the users would enjoy the very rich information of Doppler and polarimetric radars, with the increasingly complex display modes used in radar-meteorology—just to mention one of the so many modern radar applications. Many other novelties will be added in the coming years, continuing to keep alive and interesting this wide and varied radar area whose various indicators (number of employed, of published works, of attendees in Conferences …) show that the development of radar in Europe and in the rest of the world continues to be very relevant and growing. Perhaps this fact can be explained by some Darwinian aspect of radar, which is capable of continuously evolving in order to adapt itself to changing needs, without forgetting the teachings that have marked over a hundred years of its history.
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Notes
- 1.
In reality, the radar display systems of the early 1940s had, as described before, separated displays for distance, azimuth, and (whenever measured), elevation, with a significant burden for the operators.
- 2.
The International Telecommunication Union which is devoted, through its Radio-communication Sector (ITU-R), to define the use of the electromagnetic spectrum on a global basis, indicates the radar applications with the term Radiolocation.
- 3.
For example the introduction of the transmission technology known as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) in Italy has caused, in the second half of the 2000s, the replacement of the radars for the national air defense operating in the S-band ( i.e. just above 3 GHz) with the latest radar in L band, i.e. the FADR (RAT-31 DL) type.
- 4.
In over fifteen years the PCL systems, however, have not yet reached a significant diffusion or usage, not even as “gap filler”, and perhaps never will reach due to the heavy limitations which are intrinsic to a loss of control of the emitted signal. In fact, the earliest manufacturer of PCL, Lockheed Martin, has closed this line of products. Likely, better commercial chances will be reserved to military systems using PCL and PET (Passive Emission Tracking, or Passive ESM Tracking) on the same target, see [SPV 13]. In this case, the target is located by the intersections of ellipsoids (PCL) and hyperboloids (PET). On the other hand, PCL has some potential for specific applications, e.g. the use of WiFi signals to passively monitor moving objects and persons out of the line of sight. In an indoor application, the movements of people were monitored through the Range-Doppler profiles of the WiFi signals reflected by their bodies. Moving hands above the keyboard of a PC also generate Range-Doppler profiles characterising their movement, with the interesting potential for a new human-computer interface based on 3D movements of the hands.
- 5.
This operation is made possible by modern broadband transmission networks and by satellite navigation systems, which allow the precise location and the synchronization of radar stations across a country. The name statistical MIMO is also used.
- 6.
Noise Radar Technology was discussed in the international conferences since the beginning of the century (the first event was the NRTW 2002—First International Workshop on the Noise Radar Technology, September 2002, Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine, see http://nrtw2002.lndes.org/downloads/contents.pdf). This technology is discussed, among others, in the NATO working group SET 184 (2012–2014) and in its follow-on SET 225 (2015–2017).
- 7.
Also applied in other areas such as sonar systems and biomedical imaging.
- 8.
As an example, in the 2010s the University College London (UCL) and the University of Cape Town developed a multistatic system called NeXtRAD (follow-on of the previous NetRAD by UCL) with three nodes (one transmitting and two receiving), multi-frequency (X band, S and L bands being planned), variable pulse duration (0.5–20μs), dual polarization, fair power (400 W peak at X-band), large bandwidth (greater than 100 MHz; 50 MHz for the NetRad) to be used for multiband characterization of (mainly, sea) clutter and targets as well as for micro Doppler and MIMO radar trials.
- 9.
The region in which the antennas are located is smaller than the diffraction lobe of the radar target, therefore the different antenna signals may be combined in amplitude and phase, i.e. coherently.
- 10.
A real case, presented by the Dutch TNO at the EuRAD Conference (EuMW, Manchester, October 13th–14th, 2011), has been the monitoring of civil structures (mainly, buildings), by a radar with MIMO through the wall operation, positioned on a van, moving on the road in front of the buildings to be monitored.
- 11.
Those signals have theoretically null, practically negligible mutual correlation.
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Galati, G. (2016). System Integration: A Final (Dis)Solution for the Radar?. In: 100 Years of Radar. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00584-3_10
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