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Marine radar based on cylindrical array antennas with other applications

  • US 9,599,704 B2
  • Filed: 04/20/2015
  • Issued: 03/21/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2014
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A method of providing and operating a radar system for detecting moving targets comprising:

  • providing a cylindrical array antenna with one or more layers of array elements equally spaced around a respective cylinder;

    digitally controlling the array elements to activate a subset of the array elements at any given time;

    generating waveforms that are common to all active transmit array elements, the waveforms having phase or frequency modulation to provide high resolution in range;

    controlling amplitude and phase of the generated waveforms in each active transmit array element in the subset to collectively form and point the respective transmit beam;

    receiving returns from scatterers illuminated by the transmit beam at each active receive array element;

    controlling amplitude and phase of the received returns at the respective active receive array elements, and combining the results to form a receive beam;

    digitizing the combined results to form a digital representation of the radar return in the receive beam;

    processing the digitized radar returns to create a sequence of range samples;

    coherently processing a sequence of digitized radar returns to obtain Doppler resolution represented by a sequence of Doppler samples, repeated in each receive beam for each range sample;

    envelope detecting the range and Doppler samples;

    comparing the envelope detected range and Doppler samples with at least one threshold for detection of the moving targets;

    recording the receive beam positions corresponding to the spacing of the array elements of detected moving targets;

    comparing detected moving targets with previously detected targets already in track,check for range ambiguities, and update track files;

    displaying the detected moving targets on a computer monitor;

    displaying received returns from stationary objects in a background mode;

    repeating the above operations for a sequence of beam positions to scan a designated sector; and

    changing a transmit repetition frequency on alternate scans to resolve range and Doppler ambiguities.

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