An Introduction and Overview of

Radar
Document By
SANTOSH BHARADWAJ REDDY
Email: help@matlabcodes.com
Engineeringpapers.blogspot.com
More Papers and Presentations available on above site

RADAR IN BRIEF

Radar is an electromagnetic sensor for the detection and location of

reflecting objects. Its operation can be summarized as follows:
● The radar radiates electromagnetic energy from an antenna to propagate in
space.
● Some of the radiated energy is intercepted by a reflecting object, usually
called a target, located at a distance from the radar.
● The energy intercepted by the target is reradiated in many directions.
● some of the reradiated (echo) energy is returned to and received by the
radar antenna.
● After amplification by a receiver and with the aid of proper signal
processing, a decision is made at the output of the receiver as to whether or
not a target echo signal is present. At that time, the target location and
possibly other information about the target is acquired.
A common waveform radiated by a radar is a series of relatively narrow,
rectangular-like pulses. An example of a waveform for a medium-range
radar that detects aircraft might be described as a short pulse one millionth
of a second in duration (one microsecond); the time between pulses might be
one millisecond (so that the pulse repetition frequency is one kilohertz); the
peak power from the radar transmitter might be one million watts (one
megawatt); and with these numbers, the average power from the transmitter
is one kilowatt. An average power of one kilowatt might be less than the
power of the electric lighting usually found in a “typical” classroom. We
assume this example radar might operate in the middle of the microwave†
frequency ranges such as from 2.7 to 2.9 GHz, which is a typical frequency
band for civil

Airport-surveillance radars. Its wavelength might be about 10 cm

(rounding off, for simplicity). With the proper antenna such a radar might
detect aircraft out to ranges‡ of 50 to 60 nmi, more or less. The echo power
received by a radar from a target can vary over a wide range of values, but
we arbitrarily assume a “typical” echo signal for illustrative purposes might
have a power of perhaps 10−13 watts. If the radiated power is 106 watts
(one megawatt), the ratio of echo signal power from a target to the radar
transmitter power in this example is 10–19, or the received echo is 190 dB
less than the transmitted signal. That is quite a difference between the
magnitude of the transmitted signal and a detectable received echo signal.

Some radars have to detect targets at ranges as short as the distance from
behind home plate to the pitcher’s mound in a baseball park (to measure the
speed of a pitched ball), while other radars have to operate over distances as
great as the distances to the nearest planets. Thus, a radar might be small
enough to hold in the palm of one hand or large enough to occupy the space
of many football fields.

Radar targets might be aircraft, ships, or missiles; but radar targets can also
be people, birds, insects, precipitation, clear air turbulence, ionized media,
land features (vegetation, mountains, roads, rivers, airfields, buildings,
fences, and power-line poles), sea, ice, icebergs, buoys, underground
features, meteors, aurora, spacecraft, and planets. In addition to measuring
the range to a target as well as its angular direction, a radar can also find the
relative velocity of a target either by determining the rate of change of the
range measurement with time or by extracting the radial velocity from the
Doppler frequency shift of the echo signal. If the location of a moving target
is measured over a period of time, the track, or trajectory, of the target can
be found from which the absolute velocity of the target and its direction of
travel can be determined and a prediction can be made as to its future
location. Properly designed radars can determine the size and shape of a
target and might even be able to recognize one type or class of target from
another.

Basic Parts of Radar:

Figure shown below is a very elementary basic block diagram showing the
subsystems usually found in a radar. The transmitter, which is shown here as
a power amplifier, generates a suitable waveform for the particular job the
radar is to perform. It might have an average power as small as mill watts or
as large as megawatts. (The average power is a far better indication of the
capability of radar’s performance than is its peak power.) Most radars use a
short pulse waveform so that a single antenna can be used on a time-shared
basis for both transmitting and receiving.

The function of the duplexer is to allow a single antenna to be used by

protecting the sensitive receiver from burning out while the transmitter is on
and by directing the received echo signal to the receiver rather than to the
transmitter.

The antenna is the device that allows the transmitted energy to be

propagated into space and then collects the echo energy on receive. It is
almost always a directive antenna, one that directs the radiated energy into a
narrow beam to concentrate the power as well as to allow the determination
of the direction to the target. An antenna that produces a narrow directive
beam on transmit usually has a large area on receive to allow the collection
of weak echo signals from the target. The antenna not only concentrates the
energy on transmit and collects the echo energy on receive, but it also acts as
a spatial filter to provide angle resolution and other capabilities.
 POWER
WAVEFORM
DUPLEXER AMPLIFIER
GENRATOR
RR

LOW NOISE
AMPLIFIER

LOCAL Mixer Am Matc- Second Video

oscillator plifi -hed amplifier Display
detector
er filter

Block diagram of a simple radar employing a power amplifier as the transmitter in the
upper portion of the figure and a super heterodyne receiver in the lower portion of the
figure

The receiver amplifies the weak received signal to a level where its
presence can be detected. Because noise is the ultimate limitation on the
ability of a radar to make a reliable detection decision and extract
information about the target, care is taken to insure that the receiver
produces very little noise of its own. At the microwave frequencies, where
most radars are found, the noise that affects radar performance is usually
from the first stage of the receiver, shown here in Figure 1.1 as a low-noise
amplifier. For many radar applications where the limitation to detection is
the unwanted radar echoes from the environment (called clutter), the
receiver needs to have a large enough dynamic range so as to avoid having
the clutter echoes adversely affect detection of wanted moving targets by
causing the receiver to saturate. The dynamic range of a receiver, usually
expressed in decibels, is defined1 as the ratio of the maximum to the
minimum signal input power levels over which the receiver can operate with
some specified performance. The maximum signal level might be set by the
nonlinear effects of the receiver response that can be tolerated (for example,
the signal power at which the receiver begins to saturate), and the minimum

Signal might be the minimum detectable signal. The signal processor,

which is often in the IF portion of the receiver, might be described as being
the part of the receiver that separates the desired signal from the undesired
signals that can degrade the detection process. Signal processing includes
the matched filter that maximizes the output signal-to-noise ratio. Signal
processing also includes the doppler processing that maximizes the signal-
to-clutter ratio of a moving target when clutter is larger than receiver noise,
and it separates one moving target from other moving targets or from clutter
echoes.

The detection decision is made at the output of the receiver, so a target is

declared to be present when the receiver output exceeds a predetermined
threshold. If the threshold is set too low, the receiver noise can cause
excessive false alarms. If the threshold is set too high, detections of some
targets might be missed that would otherwise have been detected. The
criterion for determining the level of the decision threshold is to set the
threshold so it produces an acceptable predetermined average rate of false
alarms due to receiver noise.

After the detection decision is made, the track of a target can be determined,
where a track is the locus of target locations measured over time. This is an
example of data processing. The processed target detection information or its
track might be displayed to an operator; or the detection information might
be used to automatically guide a missile to a target; or the radar output might
be further processed to provide other information about the nature of the
target. The radar control insures that the various parts of a radar operate in a
coordinated and cooperative manner, as, for example, providing timing
signals to various parts of the radar as required.

The radar engineer has as resources time that allows good Doppler
processing, bandwidth for good range resolution, space that allows a large
antenna, and energy for long range performance and accurate measurements.
External factors affecting radar performance include the target
characteristics; external noise that might enter via the antenna; unwanted
clutter echoes from land, sea, birds, or rain; interference from other
electromagnetic radiators; and propagation effects due to the earth’s surface
and atmosphere. These factors are mentioned to emphasize that they can be
highly important in the design and application of a radar

1.2 TYPES OF RADARS

Although there is no single way to characterize a radar, here

we do so by means of what might be the major feature that
distinguishes one type of radar from another.
 Pulse radar. This is a radar that radiates a repetitive
series of almost-rectangular pulses. It might be called
the canonical form of a radar, the one usually thought
of as a radar when nothing else is said to define a
radar.

 High-resolution radar. High resolution can be obtained

in the range, angle, or Doppler velocity coordinates,
but high resolution usually implies that the radar has
high range resolution. Some high-resolution radars
have range resolutions in terms of fractions of a
meter, but it can be as small as a few centimeters.

 Pulse compression radar. This is a radar that uses a

long pulse with internal modulation (usually frequency
or phase modulation) to obtain the energy of a long
pulse with the resolution of a short pulse.

 Continuous wave (CW) radar. This radar employs a

continuous sine wave. It almost always uses the
doppler frequency shift for detecting moving targets
or for measuring the relative velocity of a target.
  FM-CW radar. This CW radar uses frequency
modulation of the waveform to allow a range
measurement.

 Surveillance radar. Although a dictionary might not

define surveillance this way, surveillance radar is one
that detects the presence of a target (such as an
aircraft or a ship) and determines its location in range
and angle. It can also observe the target over a period
of time so as to obtain its track.

 Moving target indication (MTI). This is a pulse radar

that detects moving targets in clutter by using a low
pulse repetition frequency (PRF) that usually has no
range ambiguities. It does have ambiguities in the
Doppler domain that result in so-called blind speeds.

Pulse Doppler radar. There are two types of pulse Doppler

radars that employ either a high or medium PRF pulse
radar. They both use the Doppler frequency shift to extract
moving targets in clutter. A high PRF pulse doppler radar
has no ambiguities (blind speeds) in Doppler, but it does
have range ambiguities. A medium PRF pulse doppler radar
has ambiguities in both range and Doppler. Tracking radar.

This is a radar that provides the track, or trajectory, of a

target. Tracking radars can be further delineated as STT,
ADT, TWS, and phased array trackers as described below:

 Single Target Tracker (STT).

Tracks a single target at a data rate high enough
to provide accurate tracking of a maneuvering
target. A revisit time of 0.1 s (data rate of 10
measurements per second) might be “typical.” It
might employ the mono pulse tracking method for
accurate tracking information in the angle
coordinate.
 Automatic detection and tracking (ADT).
 This is tracking performed by a surveillance radar.
It can have a very large number of targets in track
by using the measurements of target locations
obtained over multiple scans of the antenna. Its
data rate is not as high as the STT. Revisit times
might range from one to 12 seconds, depending
on the application.
 Track-while-scan (TWS).
Usually a radar that provides surveillance over a
narrow region of angle in one or two dimensions,
so as to provide at a rapid update rate location
information on all targets within a limited angular
region of observation. It has been used in the past
for ground-based radars that guide aircraft to a
landing, in some types of weapon-control radars,
and in some military airborne radars.

 Phased array tracker.

An electronically scanned phased array can
(almost) “continuously” track more than one
target at a high data rate. It can also simulta-
neously provide the lower data rate tracking of
multiple targets similar to that performed by ADT.
 Imaging radar.
This radar produces a two-dimensional image of a
target or a scene, such as a portion of the surface
of the earth and what is on it. These radars usually
are on moving platforms.
 Side looking airborne radar (SLAR).
This airborne side looking imaging radar provides
high resolution in range and obtains suitable
resolution in angle by using a narrow beam width
antenna.
 Synthetic aperture radar (SAR).
SAR is a coherent* imaging radar on a moving
vehicle that uses the phase information of the
echo signal to obtain an image of a scene with
 high resolution in both range and cross-range.
High range resolution is often obtained using pulse
compression.
 Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR).
ISAR is coherent imaging radar that uses high
resolution in range and the relative motion of the
target to obtain high resolution in the doppler
domain that allows resolution in the cross-range
dimension to be obtained. It can be on a moving
vehicle or it can be stationary.
 Weapon control radar.
This name is usually applied to a single-target
tracker used for defending against air attack.
 Guidance radar.
This is usually a radar on a missile that allows the
missile to “home in,” or guide itself, to a target.
 Weather (meteorological) observation.
Such radars detect, recognize, and measure
precipitation rate, wind speed and direction, and
observe other weather effects

INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM A RADAR

Detection of targets is of little value unless some information

about the target is obtained as well. Likewise, target
information without target detection is meaningless.
Range.
Probably the most distinguishing feature of a conventional
radar is its ability to determine the range to a target by
measuring the time it takes for the radar signal to propagate
at the speed of light out to the target and back to the radar.
No other sensor can measure the distance to a remote
target at long range with the accuracy of radar (basically
limited at long ranges by the accuracy of the knowledge of
the velocity of propagation). At modest ranges, the precision
can be a few centimeters. To measure range, some sort of
timing mark must be introduced on the transmitted
waveform. A timing mark can be a short pulse (an amplitude
modulation of the signal), but it can also be a distinctive
modulation of the frequency or phase. The accuracy of a
range measurement depends on the radar signal bandwidth:
the wider the bandwidth, the greater the accuracy. Thus
bandwidth is the basic measure of range accuracy.

Radial Velocity.

The radial velocity of a target is obtained from the rate of

change of range over a period of time. It can also be
obtained from the measurement of the Doppler frequency
shift. An accurate measurement of radial velocity requires
time. Hence time is the basic parameter describing the
quality of a radial velocity measurement. The speed of a
moving target and its direction of travel can be obtained
from its track, which can be found from the radar
measurements of the target location over a period of time.

Angular Direction.
One method for determining the direction to a target is by
determining the angle where the magnitude of the echo
signal from a scanning antenna is maximum. This usually
requires an antenna with a narrow beam width (a high-gain
antenna). Air-surveillance radar with a rotating antenna
beam determines angle in this manner. The angle to a target
in one angular dimension can also be determined by using
two antenna beams, slightly displaced in angle, and
comparing the echo amplitude received in each beam. Four
beams are needed to obtain the angle measurement in both
azimuth and elevation.
Size and Shape.
 If the radar has sufficient resolution capability in range or
angle, it can provide a measurement of the target extent in
the dimension of high resolution. Range is usually the
coordinate where resolution is obtained. Resolution in cross
range (given by the range multiplied by the antenna beam
width) can be obtained with very narrow beam width
antennas. However, the angular width of an antenna beam is
limited, so the cross-range resolution obtained by this
method is not as good as the range resolution. Very good
resolution in the cross-range dimension can be obtained by
employing the doppler frequency domain, based on SAR
(synthetic aperture radar) or ISAR (inverse synthetic
aperture radar systems), There needs to be relative motion
between the target and the radar in order to obtain the
cross-range resolution by SAR or ISAR. With sufficient
resolution in both range and cross-range, not only can the
size be obtained in two orthogonal coordinates, but the
target shape can sometimes be discerned.

The Importance of Bandwidth in Radar.

Bandwidth basically represents information; hence, it is

very important in many radar applications. There are two
types of bandwidth encountered in radar. One is the signal
bandwidth, which is the bandwidth determined by the signal
pulse width or by any internal modulation of the signal. The
other is tunable bandwidth. Generally, the signal bandwidth
of a simple pulse of sine wave of duration t is 1/t. (Pulse
compression waveforms, discussed in Chapter 8, can have
much greater bandwidth than the reciprocal of their pulse
width.) Large bandwidth is needed for resolving targets in
range, for accurate measurement of range to a target, and
for providing a limited capability to recognize one type of
target from another. High range resolution also can be useful
for reducing the degrading effects of what is known as glint
in a tracking radar, for measuring the altitude of an aircraft
based on the difference in time delay (range) between the
two-way direct signal from radar to target and the two-way
surface-scattered signal from radar to surface to target (also
called multi path height finding), and in increasing the
target-signal-to-clutter ratio. In military systems, high range
resolution may be employed for counting the number of
aircraft flying in close formation and for recognizing and
thwarting some types of deception countermeasures.

Tunable bandwidth offers the ability to change (tune) the

radar signal frequency over a wide range of the available
spectrum. This can be used for reducing mutual interference
among radars that operate in the same frequency band, as
well as in attempting to make hostile electronic
countermeasures less effective. The higher the operating
frequency the easier it is to obtain wide signal and wide
tunable bandwidth.

A limitation on the availability of bandwidth in a radar is the

control of the spectrum by government regulating agencies
(in the United States, the Federal Communication
Commission, and internationally, the International
Telecommunications Union). After the success of radar in
World War II, radar was allowed to operate over about one-
third of the microwave spectrum. This spectrum space has
been reduced considerably over the years with the advent of
many commercial users of the spectrum in the age of
“wireless” and other services requiring the electromagnetic
spectrum. Thus, the radar engineer is increasingly
experiencing smaller available spectrum space and
bandwidth allocations that can be vital for the success of
many radar applications.

Signal-to-Noise Ratio.

The accuracy of all radar measurements, as well as the

reliable detection of targets depends on the ratio E/No,
where E is the total energy of the received signal that is
processed by the radar and No is the noise power per unit
bandwidth of the receiver. Thus E/No is an important
measure of the capability of a radar.
 The Doppler Shift in Radar.
The importance of the doppler frequency shift began to be
appreciated for pulse radar shortly after World War II and
became an increasingly important factor in many radar
applications. Modern radar would be much less interesting or
useful if the doppler effect didn’t exist. The doppler
frequency shift fd can be written as

fd=2Vr/λ=(2vcosθ)/ λ

where vr = v cos q is the relative velocity of the target

(relative to the radar) in m/s, v is the absolute velocity of the
target in m/s, λ is the radar wavelength in m, and q is the
angle between the target’s direction and the radar beam. To
an accuracy of about 3 percent, the Doppler frequency in
hertz is approximately equal to vr (kt) divided by l (m).

The doppler frequency shift is widely used to separate

moving targets from stationary clutter, as discussed in
Chapters 2 through 5. Such radars are known as MTI (moving
target indication), AMTI (airborne MTI), and pulse doppler.

All modern air-traffic control radars, all important military

ground-based and airborne air-surveillance radars, and all
military airborne fighter radars take advantage of the
Doppler Effect. Yet in WWII, none of these pulse radar
applications used doppler. The CW (continuous wave) radar
also employs the doppler effect for detecting moving
targets, but CW radar for this purpose is not as popular as it
 once was. The HF OTH radar (Chapter 20) could
not do its job of detecting moving targets in the
presence of large clutter echoes from the earth’s surface
without the use of doppler.

APPLICATIONS OF RADAR

Military Applications.

Radar was invented in the 1930s because of the need for

defense against heavy military bomber aircraft. The military
need for radar has probably been its most important
application and the source of most of its major
developments, including those for civilian purposes.

The chief use of military radar has been for air defense operating from land,
sea, or air. It has not been practical to perform successful air defense without
radar. In air defense, radar is used for long-range air surveillance, short-
range detection of low-altitude “pop-up” targets, weapon control, missile
guidance, non cooperative target recognition, and battle damage assessment.
The proximity fuze in many weapons is also an example of a radar. An
excellent measure of the success of radar for military air defense is the large
amounts of money that have been spent on methods to counter its
effectiveness.

These include electronic counter measures and other aspects of electronic

warfare, anti radiation missiles to home on radar signals, and low cross-
section aircraft and ships. Radar is also used by the military for
reconnaissance, targeting over land or sea, as well as surveillance over the
sea.
 On the battlefield, radar is asked to perform the functions
of air surveillance (including surveillance of aircraft,
helicopters, missiles, and unmanned airborne vehicles),
control of weapons to an air intercept, hostile weapons
location (mortars, artillery, and rockets), detection of
intruding personnel, and control of air traffic.

The use of radar for ballistic missile defense has been of

interest ever since the threat of ballistic missiles arose in the
late 1950s. The longer ranges, high supersonic speeds, and
the smaller target size of ballistic missiles make the problem
challenging. There is no natural clutter problem in space as
there is for defense against aircraft, but ballistic missiles can
appear in the presence of a large number of extraneous con-
fusion targets and other countermeasures that an attacker
can launch to accompany the reentry vehicle carrying a
warhead. The basic ballistic missile defense problem
becomes more of a target recognition problem rather than
detection and tracking. The need for warning of the
approach of ballistic missiles has resulted in a number of
different types of radars for performing such a function.
Similarly, radars have been deployed that are capable of
detecting and tracking satellites.

A related task for radar that is not military is the detection

and interception of drug traffic. There are several types of
radars that can contribute to this need, including the long-
range HF over-the-horizon radar.

Remote Sensing of the Environment.

The major application in this category has been weather observation radar
such as the Nexrad system whose output is often seen on the television
weather report. There also exist vertical-looking wind-profiler radars that
determine wind speed and direction as a function of altitude, by detecting
the very weak radar echo from the clear air. Located around airports are the
Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) systems that warn of dangerous
wind shear produced by the weather effect known as the downburst, which
can accompany severe storms. There is usually a specially designed
 weather avoidance radar in the nose of small as well as large aircraft to
warn of dangerous or uncomfortable weather in flight.

Another successful remote-sensing radar was the downward-looking space

borne altimeter radar that measured worldwide the geoid (the mean sea
level, which is not the same all over the world), with exceptionally high
accuracy. There have been attempts in the past to use radar for determining
soil moisture and for assessing the status of agriculture crops, but these have
not provided sufficient accuracy. Imaging radars in satellites or aircraft have
been used to help ships efficiently navigate northern seas coated with ice
because radar can tell which types of ice are easier for a ship to penetrate.

Air-Traffic Control.

The high degree of safety in modern air travel is due in part to the successful
applications of radar for the effective, efficient, and safe control of air
traffic. Major airports employ an Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR) for
observing the air traffic in the vicinity of the airport. Such radars also
provide information about nearby weather so aircraft can be routed around
uncomfortable weather.

Major airports also have a radar called Airport Surface Detection Equipment
(ASDE) for observing and safely controlling aircraft and airport vehicle
traffic on the ground. For control of air traffic en route from one terminal to
another, long-range Air Route Surveillance Radars (ARSR) are found
worldwide.

The Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS) is not a radar but
is a cooperative system used to identify aircraft in flight. It uses radar-like
technology and was originally based on the military IFF (Identification
Friend or Foe) system.
Other Applications.

A highly significant application of radar that provided information not

available by any other method, was the exploration of the surface of the
planet Venus by an imaging radar that could see under the ever-present
clouds that mask the planet.

One of the widest used and least expensive of radars has been the civil
marine radar found throughout the world for the safe navigation of boats and
ships. Some readers have undoubtedly been confronted by the highway
police using the CW doppler radar to measure the speed of a vehicle.
Ground penetrating radar has been used to find buried utility lines, as well as
by the police for locating buried objects and bodies. Archeologists have used
it to determine where to begin to look for buried artifacts. Radar has been
helpful to both the ornithologist and entomologist for better understanding
the movements of birds and insects. It has also been demonstrated that radar
can detect the gas seepage that is often found over underground oil and gas
deposits.
Document By
SANTOSH BHARADWAJ REDDY
Email: help@matlabcodes.com
Engineeringpapers.blogspot.com
More Papers and Presentations available on above site