High Resolution Software Defined Radar System for Target Detection

Abstract

The Universal Software Radio Peripheral USRP NI2920, a software defined transceiver so far mainly used in Software Defined Radio applications, is adopted in this work to design a high resolution L-Band Software Defined Radar system. The enhanced available bandwidth, due to the Gigabit Ethernet interface, is exploited to obtain a higher slant-range resolution with respect to the existing Software Defined Radar implementations. A specific LabVIEW application, performing radar operations, is discussed, and successful validations are presented to demonstrate the accurate target detection capability of the proposed software radar architecture. In particular, outdoor and indoor test are performed by adopting a metal plate as reference structure located at different distances from the designed radar system, and results obtained from the measured echo are successfully processed to accurately reveal the correct target position, with the predicted slant-range resolution equal to 6 m.

Modeling and Processing L-Band Ground Based Radar Data for Landslides Early Warning

“…Such a case is indeed of interest in the applications, as it allows a very simple deployment of low-cost radar systems [20], and it allows to monitor regions which could not be easily accessible from satellites or airborne-based instrumentations. Moreover, the use of relatively low frequencies allows penetration of foliage.…”

Modern Software Defined Radar (SDR) Technology and Its Trends

“…In Italia, Costanzo et al [12] adopted a USRP to design a high resolution L-Band SDR system, which was tested which was tested in outdoor s and showed accurately the correct target position with the predicted slant-range resolution equal to 6 m. They also discussed the synchronization issues existing between a received and a transmitted signal when a USRP is considered [3]. They proposed a multiband SDR based on the OFDM technique for the accurate detection of soil discontinuities, taking into account also the dispersive behavior of media [13].…”

Frequency Agile Radial-Shaped Varactor-Loaded Reflectarray Cell

“…Several recent papers [1][2][3][4] demonstrate the effectiveness of reconfigurable reflectarrays in replacing mechanically moved reflectors or phased arrays, leading many other benefits strictly related to reflectarray concept, such as low profile, simpler architectures, increased efficiencies, instantaneous radar beam positioning [5], [6], and absence of mechanical vibrations. Furthermore, active reflectarrays allow to simultaneously achieve one or more reconfiguration functionalities, by simply acting at the unit cell level, to have reconfigurable elements integrated with more electronically tunable components.…”