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Exploring Radar Architecture Choices: Why Does Beam Scanning Affect Detection Performance?
In today's rapidly evolving technological era, radar technology has become an important tool for a variety of applications, ranging from air traffic management to autonomous vehicles. Radar engineering focuses on the design and technical elements that affect object detection performance, including the radar's chips, variable beam scanning methods, and the performance of its components.
The quality of architectural selection of a radar system directly affects its detection capabilities. The angle of the target can be detected through highly directional beam scanning radar, and the exploration methods mainly include electronic scanning and mechanical scanning. Mechanical scanning is usually accomplished by rotating antennas, while electronic scanning uses phased array antennas, which provide faster scanning speeds and more flexible operation.
Selecting an appropriate radar architecture requires not only considering the sensor used, but also the environment of the application scenario and the required performance.
In electronically scanned arrays (ESA), the advantages of this radar technology are obvious, enabling instantaneous beam scanning capabilities and the ability to operate multiple flexible beams simultaneously, which allows different radar modes to operate simultaneously. Its performance indicators such as effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and receiving gain (GR/T) are key factors affecting long-distance detection.
For example, there are significant architectural differences between active electronically scanned arrays (AESA) and passive electronically scanned arrays (PESA). Each antenna of AESA is connected to a solid-state power amplification module, which has high performance and high reliability, but its cost is also relatively high. PESA, on the other hand, connects all antennas to a single power amplification module. Although the implementation cost is low, it has higher requirements for phase converters.
In terms of beamforming, scanning methods at different frequencies and fields (such as digital, optical or radio frequency fields) will affect radar performance.
In radar operation, the emitted signal can be continuous or pulsed. These choices not only affect the detection range, but also determine the detection resolution of the radar. Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar and pulse Doppler (Pulse-Doppler) radar have their own advantages and disadvantages in detection performance. The former is usually suitable for short-distance detection, while the latter is more suitable for long-distance detection.
The half-duplex characteristics of pulse Doppler radar provide better isolation between the receiver and transmitter, enhancing the dynamic range of the receiver. At the same time, this type of radar usually uses one antenna for transmitting and receiving, and FMCW radar requires a separate antenna setup. Such a design determines the detection capability and operational flexibility of a radar system.
In addition, monopulse radar improves angular accuracy by comparing echoes, helping to pinpoint targets.
When discussing radar architecture, the arrangement of transmission and reception must also be considered, which makes the scanning method of the beam one of the key factors affecting detection performance. For example, monostation radars have transmitters and receivers placed closely together, whereas bistation radars are separated and require precise time synchronization to ensure accuracy in data interpretation.
Platform selection is also an important step in determining radar performance. Radar systems can be installed on various platforms, such as air, sea and ground. Each platform will have different effects on the background noise and noise of the radar, which further determines the beam scanning technology used, thus affecting the final detection performance.
In the face of changing environments and requirements, the operating frequency and propagation window of radar will also affect radar design choices. Different frequencies help optimize radar cross-section (RCS) performance, which is another cumulative factor that contributes to differences in the performance of different radars. In addition, radar operating modes, such as search, tracking, ground mapping, etc., will also vary according to different applications.
In general, the selection of radar architecture and the decision of beam scanning method are multi-layered and complex processes. This involves not only technical specifications, but also requires a deep understanding of the characteristics of specific application requirements. When facing the development of radar technology in the future, can appropriate architectural choices truly achieve optimal detection performance?
