Forward scattering radar (FSR) is a special mode of bistatic radar that can be used for target detection and classification. FSR offer a number of interesting features such as: relatively simple hardware; an enhanced target radar cross section (compared to traditional radar); a long coherent interval of the receiving signal; robustness to stealth technology and possible operation using non-cooperative transmitters. This thesis is dedicated to the experimental study of the feasibility of FSR and its application for automatic ground target classification. It introduces the radar system itself, fundamental theoretical analysis, target recognition algorithm and the targets' classification subsystem. For target recognition, the effect of Shadow Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (SISAR) is used. The overall classification system is described, this includes the extraction of features from the radar measurements, and the use of Fourier Transform and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to transform these features prior to using the K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) classifier. By analysing 917 experimentally obtained vehicle signatures, the performance of the system is experimentally evaluated and the effectiveness of the system is confirmed. The limitations of the work and its future direction are also discussed.

No description available.

A new system for remote detection of onbody concealed weapons such as knives and handheld guns at standoff distances presented in this thesis. The system was designed, simulated, constructed and tested in the laboratory. The detection system uses an Ultrawide Band (UWB) antenna to bombard the target with a UWB electromagnetic pulse. This incident pulse induces electrical currents in the surface of an object such as a knife, which given appropriate conditions these currents generate an electromagnetic backscatter radiation. The radiated waves are detected using another UWB antenna to obtain the Late Time Response (LTR) signature of the detected object. The LTR signature was analysed using the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) in order to assess the nature and the geometry of the object. The thesis presents the work which divided into two related areas. The first involved the design, simulation, fabrication, and testing of an Ultra-wide Band (UWB) antenna with operating bandwidth of 0.25 – 3.0 GHz and specific characteristics. Simulated and measured results show that the designed antenna achieves the design objectives which are, flat gain, a VSWR of around unity and distortion less transmitted narrow pulse. The operating bandwidth was chosen to cover the fundamental Complex Natural Resonance (CNR) modes of most firearms and to give a fine enough time resolution. The second area covered by this thesis presents a new approach for extract target signature based on the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) applied to the scattering response of onbody concealed weapons. A series of experiments were conducted to test the operation of the detection system which involved onbody and offbody objects such as, knives, handheld guns, and a number of metallic wires of various dimensions. Practical and simulation results were in good agreement demonstrating the success of the approach of using the CWT in analyzing the LTR signature which is used for the first time in this work. Spectral response for every target could be seen as a distribution in which the energy level and life-time depended on the target material and geometry. The spectral density provides very powerful information concerning target unique signature.

This research aims at providing a system design that reduces the mass and cost of spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions by a factor of two compared to current (TecSAR - 300 kg, - £ 127 M) or planned (NovaSAR-S - - 400 kg, - £ 50 M) mission. This would enable the cost of a SAR constellation to approach that of the current optical constellation such as Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). This research has identified that the mission cost can be reduced significantly by: focusing on a narrow range of applications (forestry and disasters monitoring); ensuring the final design has a compact stowage volume, which facilitates a shared launch; and building the payload around available platforms, rather than the platform around the payload. The central idea of the research has been to operate the SAR at a low instantaneous power level-a practical proposition for a micro-satellite based SAR. The use of a simple parabolic reflector with a single horn at L-band means that a single, reliable and efficient Solid State Power Amplifier (SSPA) can be used to lower the overall system cost, and to minimise the impact on the spacecraft power system. A detailed analysis of basic pulsed (- 5 - 10 % duty cycle) and Continuous Wave (CW) SAR (100 % duty cycle) payloads has shown their inability to fit directly into existing microsatellite buses without involving major changes, or employing more than one platform. To circumvent the problems of pulsed and CW techniques, two approaches have been formulated. The first shows that a CW SAR can be implemented in a mono-static way with a single antenna on a single platform. In this technique, the SAR works in an Interrupted CW (ICW) mode, but these interruptions introduce periodic gaps in the raw data. On processing, these gapped data result in artefacts in the reconstructed images. By applying data based statistical estimation techniques to "fill in the gaps" in the simulated raw SAR data, this research has shown the possibility of minimising the effects of these artefacts. However, once the same techniques are applied to the real SAR data (in this case derived from RADARSAT-l), the artefacts are shown to be problematic. Because of this the ICW SAR design technique it is-set aside. The second shows that an extended chirp mode pulsed (ECMP) SAR (- 20 - 54 % duty cycle) can be designed with a lowered peak power level which enables a single SSPA to feed a parabolic Cas se grain antenna. The detailed analysis shows the feasibility of developing a micro satellite based SAR design at a comparable price to those of optical missions.

No description available.

No description available.

A bistatic radar has a physically separated transmitter and receiver. This research pro gramme investigates a bistatic radar system which uses a spaceborne synthetic aperture radar transmitter on board the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite and a station ary, ground based receiver. The advantages of this variant of the bistatic configuration includes the passive and therefore covert nature of the receiver, its relatively low cost, in addition to the possibility of using a non-cooperative transmitter. The theory behind bistatic SAR systems is covered, including the specific case investi gated. The design, construction and testing of the bistatic receiver, which uses two separate channels, for the direct signal from the satellite (for synchronisation purposes) and the re flected signals from the imaged scene is also described. A SAR processing scheme using an adapted chirp scaling algorithm is presented and demonstrated through simulations to produce focused images for the scenario. The results of several bistatic imaging experiments are analysed through comparisons with theoretical impulse responses, and comparisons with satellite photographs, the corresponding monostatic image produced by Envisat, and the bistatic ambiguity function. It is demonstrated that focused images may be produced with such a system, although the performance achievable is dependent upon the imaging geometry. Different look direc tions of the receiver produce widely differing resolution values. The optimum choice of look direction must be weighed against possible direct signal interference in the reflected signal channel. Other effects, such as azimuth ambiguities caused by the sampling of the mov ing transmitter beam by the pulse repetition frequency may also have an effect, depending upon the combined transmit/receive beam pattern. Aspects of the system that could be investigated in the future are identified, for example the addition of an extra channel to the receiver in order to perform bistatic displaced phase centre antenna or interferometry experiments.

Bibliography: leaves 222-230 / xiv, 230 leaves : ill ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 1992

Heterogeneous mixtures have the potential to be used as synthetic substrates for antenna applications giving the antenna designer new degrees of freedom to control the permittivity and/or permeability in three dimensions such as by a smooth variation of the density of the inclusions, the height of the substrate and the manufacture the whole antenna system in one process. Electromagnetic, fabrication, environmental, time and cost advantages are potential especially when combined with nano-fabrication techniques. Readily available and cheap materials such as Polyethylene and Copper can be used in creating these heterogeneous materials. These advantages have been further explained in this thesis. In this thesis, the research presented is on canonical, numerical and measurement analysis on heterogeneous mixtures that can be used as substrates for microwave applications. It is hypothesised that heterogeneous mixtures can be used to design bespoke artificial dielectric substrates for say, patch antennas. The canonical equations from published literature describing the effective permittivity, ε_eff and effective permeability, μ_eff of heterogeneous mixtures have been extensively examined and compared with each other. Several simulations of homogenous and heterogeneous media have been carried out and an extraction/inversion algorithm applied to find their ε_eff and μ_eff. Parametric studies have been presented to show how the different variables of the equations and the simulations affect the accuracy of the results. The extracted results from the inversion process showed very good agreement with the known values of the homogenous media. Numerically and canonically computed values of ε_eff and μ_eff of various heterogeneous media were shown to have good agreement. The fabrication techniques used in creating the samples used in this research were examined, along with the different measurement methods used in characterising their electromagnetic properties via simulations and measurements. The challenges faced with these measurement methods were explained including the possible sources of error. Patch antennas were used to investigate how the performance of an antenna may be affected by heterogeneous media with metallic inclusions. The performance of the patch antenna was not inhibited by the presence of the metallic inclusions in close proximity. The patch measurement was also used as a measurement technique in determining the ε_eff of the samples.