A solid state 94 GHz FMCW Doppler radar demonstrator for cloud profiling

We present the design and characterization of a ground-based, zenith-pointing, 94 GHz FMCW Doppler radar demonstrator for cloud profiling. The radar uses an all solid-state and relatively simple homodyne architecture and two, low sidelobe 0.5 m diameter Fresnel zone plate antennas to reduce system costs. The low-phase noise, coherent radar employs a direct digital synthesis (DDS) chip for highly linear chirp generation. The design will be able to leverage ongoing future improvements in mm-wave low noise and power amplifier technology to maximize sensitivity. Once the radar is installed in a rooftop location, the processor will perform real-time range-Doppler measurements with averaging, to yield target velocity spectra as a function of altitude.

Citation

Robertson , D A & Hunter , R I 2017 , A solid state 94 GHz FMCW Doppler radar demonstrator for cloud profiling . in K I Ranney & A Doerry (eds) , Radar Sensor Technology XXI . , 101880X , Proceedings of SPIE , vol. 10188 , SPIE , Radar Sensor Technology XXI 2017 , Anaheim , United States , 10/04/17 . https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2261871

conference

Publication

Radar Sensor Technology XXI

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2261871

ISSN

0277-786X

Type

Conference item

Rights

© 2017, SPIE. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2261871

Collections

University of St Andrews Research

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12876