RADAR TYPES: Continuous wave radar (CWR) and Pulsed radar(PR)

Phased array problem: (here)

PR: Pulse is sent and received the echo-return, the time different btw the pulse indicates the ranges.
CWR: system with a known stable frequency continuous wave radio energy is transmitted and received from reflecting objects.
The return frequencies are shifted away from the transmitted frequency based on the Doppler effect if they are moving.
 Technique: CW needs stable phase exciter, CW radar using superheterodyne technique to improve sensitivity.
 Advantages: simple to manufacture. Have no minimum or maximum range (although the broadcast power level imposes a
practical limit on range) and maximize power on a target because they are always broadcasting.
 Disadvantages: only detecting moving targets, as stationary targets (along the line of sight) will not cause a Doppler shift and
the reflected signals will be filtered out.
 Application: CW systems are used at both ends of the range spectrum; e.g., as radio-altimeters at the close-range end (where the
range may be a few feet), and early warning radars at long range.--The military uses continuous-wave radar to guide semi-active
radar homing air-to-air missiles, such as the U.S. AIM-7 Sparrow. The launch aircraft illuminates the target with a CW radar
signal, and the missile homes in on the reflected radar waves. Since the missile is moving at high velocities relative to the
aircraft, there is almost always a strong return. Most modern air combat radars, even pulse Doppler sets, have a CW function for
missile guidance purposes. CWR such as Trackman, are now also being used in sports to track ball and equipment parameters.

FMCWR: CW can’t detect range. However, by implementing FMCW techniques, range can be determined by comparing the
frequency of the received signal to the one being sent, the difference in frequency can be accurately measured, and from that the
time-of-flight can be calculated..
Pulse Doppler Radar: able to detect doppler

See also
Doppler radar
Fm-cw radar
Pulse-doppler radar

 Differences btw Pulse radar and FMCW radar:

o Hardware: pulse radars use magnetrons to generate the energy, whilst FMCW ones use solid state amplifiers.
o Antenna: marine pulse radars often use a single antenna, whilst FMCW often uses two, one mounted on top of the other.
o Operation: Pulse radars either transmit or receive, whilst FMCW ones do both at the same time.
o Distance = CtReturn /2; pulse radar use tReturn; while if the FMCW radar sweeps through fSweep [Hz] in SRP seconds and,
within the SRP, the difference between the frequency of the echo and that currently being transmitted is fDifference , then
FMCW tReturnFMCW = SRP x fDifference / fSweep [s]
o Energy not power: the energy that matters when considering target detection not the peak power, the unit of energy is the
“Joule” and one Joule is one Watt of power delivered for one second. Comparisons btw pulse radars and FMCW ones we
need to think in Joules not Watts. (It could be argued that if we are to consider Joules per second that is just the mean power
so compare mean powers. Take your pick but choose one and forget peak power). As the antenna rotates it will illuminate
the target with energy for a few milliseconds which is why the author prefers to think in terms of energy. A conventional
4kW radar will typically use a 100ns pulse on the short ranges with a PRF of about 3kHz: multiplying the numbers together
establishes that it radiates 1.2J of energy per second.— A 2W FMCW radar will typically sweep the frequency over a period
(SRP) of about 1ms, which corresponds to a pulse width of 1mS and have a PRF of 1kHz. That is, it transmits all of the time
and radiates 2J of energy in every second. For practical reasons, it may not have the processing power to radiate
continuously but the principle remains.
o On longer ranges, a pulse radar may have a 1μs pulse and a PRF of about 1kHz: that provides 4J. The energy from the
FMCW radar is independent of the radar’s selected range.
o Noise: All receivers generate noise of their own and for radar to detect a target; the target’s echo needs to have more energy
than the radar’s own noise. A radar receiver does not accept a single frequency but a range of them called its “bandwidth”
and the amount of noise energy is proportional to that bandwidth.— In order to improve the SNR there are only three things
a designer can do: illuminate the target with more energy, reduce the inherent noise and use as little bandwidth as practical .
o Requirement on receiver bandwidth: Pulse radar requires a bandwidth that is inversely proportional to the pulse width.
That is, it requires a wider bandwidth on the shorter ranges than it does on the longer ones — An FMCW radar has the
opposite requirements. The shorter the range, the less the difference between the transmitted and received frequencies and
the less bandwidth is required. The less the bandwidth, the less the receiver noise energy that the target energy needs to
exceed for reliable detection. FMCW radars have a further difficulty at longer ranges because their performance tends to be
determined by the spectral purity of the transmitted signal rather than the receiver’s noise.
o Having regard to transmitted energy, receiver noise & spectral purity, it will be seen that a pattern is emerging. FMCW
radar is inherently capable of having better target detection than pulse radar at short ranges and worse at long ranges
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 Difference between search and tracking radars?: (Radar FAQs); typical air search radars, is performed over 360° in azimuth and
over elevation angles ranging from 20-30° up to almost 90°, processing the echoes over the whole PRI, i.e. over the whole
observable range), using different scan techniques; classical fan beam has no target’s elevation info is called 2D-radar(only
range and azimuth).
 How do conical scan and monopulse tracking systems work? (Radar FAQs);
 How is the scan of a search radar performed? (Radar FAQs);
 How does a Phased Array antenna work? (Radar FAQs);
 "staggered PRF" operation (Radar FAQs): are mainly used to cope with multiple-time-around echoes
o Staggered PRF operation is used on many radars (almost all, in different forms).
o Remove Range ambiguity by changing PRI during the time on target. With different PRIs, target will appear at different
ranges; General rule, use of n different PRI allows to solve up to nth-time around echoes (normally, 3 or 4 are used).
o It is possible to change the PRI at each transmitted pulse, but, generally, in modern radars using "packet" processing, they
are changed on a packet basis (some tens of pulses).
o Note that many modern air-search radars (the so-called "pulse doppler" radars) intentionally work with PRFs so high to
have ambiguous range, in order to sample the return at frequency higher than the maximum expected doppler shift (no
doppler ambiguity), and cannot work without range ambiguity resolution.
o Avoiding range ambiguity requires low PRFs, while avoiding doppler ambiguity requires high PRFs. Trade-off between
the two is a big issue in radar design: normally, you have to accept and solve ambiguities in one of these field, or in both.
o PRF staggering can also be an ECCM technique. In fact, it makes difficult for the jammer to predict the arrival time of
the next pulse, making, for example, uneffective the use of the "range gate pull in" deception technique. Anyway, if only
ECCM is of interest, "PRF jittering" (random pulse-to-pulse variation of the PRF) is normally preferred.
 Is it possible to discriminate details smaller than the angular resolution? If yes, how? (Radar FAQs);
o It’s NOT possible to discriminate details smaller than the radar resolution cell, but in presence of relative(tangential) motion
between radar and target, this angular resolution is NOT necessary the same as the physical aperture of the antenna beam.
The improvement can be achieved using a technique called "synthetic aperture". If proper coherent processing of the echoes
is provided, observing the target from different points can be considered like "sampling" different points of a "virtual
antenna" as long as the distance traveled by the radar during the observation time. The same effect can be understood by
thinking at a radar (supposed operating in continuous wave for simplicity) moving wrt a point target at about 90 deg from its
velocity vector. The echo will have a positive Doppler shift when the target is at <90 deg (closing) and negative Doppler
shift when target is at >90 deg (receding). Analyse the target Doppler history, it’s then possible to localise the target with
resolution better than the antenna beam aperture.
o Independently from the approach used to model this effect, the conclusion is that, for a so-called "stripmap" (i.e., side-
looking with no antenna steering) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) the resolution (in m) is independent from the target range
and is proportional to the antenna dimensions. For an antenna of lenght L, the resolution is L/2.
o This because a smaller antenna provides a larger beam, which allows longer illumination times and then a larger "synthetic
antenna", thus improving the angular resolution. Increasing the target range also produces an increasing of the synthetic
antenna aperture and then an improvement of angular resolution, compensating for the degradation due to the increased
distance.
o Even if the principle is simple, practical implementation of this technique is very complex. The correlation to be performed
on each individual pixel requires huge computing resources, and several disturbing effects need to be accounted for and
compensated. Anyway, several systems of this kind are currently operational on both airborne and space platforms.
o A deeper description on how a Synthetic Aperture Radar works can be found here
 What is "Coherent-on-receive" operation? (Radar FAQs);