Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Coffee Can Radar System, Dale Coker

Honors Theses

A Radio Detection and Ranging (“radar”) system detects a target and accurately determines its range and velocity using radio frequency (RF) waves. In the presence of a target, these RF waves are reflected, received, and processed. Until recently, radar systems have been too expensive to implement as undergraduate research projects, primarily because of the cost of the associated RF components. Recently, MIT has developed a low-cost radar system as part of an open-source course. Therefore, one objective of this project is to design and construct a radar system based on the MIT design. A further objective is to develop a …

The Umass Experimental X-Band Radar (Umaxx): An Upgrade Of The Casa Ma-1 To Support Cross-Polarization Measurements, Jezabel Vilardell Sanchez

Masters Theses

Ground-based radars are instruments commonly used to surveil the precipitation climate of the surrounding areas. Weather events are characterized by collecting backscatter data and analyzing computed products such as the Reflectivity Factor, the Doppler Velocity, the Spectrum Width, the Differential Reflectivity, the Co-polar Correlation Coefficient and the Differential Propagation Phase. The ability of the radar to transmit different polarization waves, such as horizontal and vertical polarization, allow for further analysis of the weather given the capability to perform co-polar and cross-polar measurements. The Linear Depolarization Ratio is another computed product based on the difference in power between the co-polarized and …

Software Defined Radar For Vital Sign Detection, Chandler J. Bauder, James Bates, Steven Engel, James S. Tucker, Fangzhou Liu

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Kasi: A Ka-Band And S-Band Cross-Track Interferometer, Gerard Ruiz Carregal

Masters Theses

A dual-frequency system is needed to better understand natural processes that constitute the environment and seasonal cycles of the Earth. A system working at two different wavelengths acquiring data simultaneously will give a valuable dataset since the conditions on the ground will be exactly the same. Hence, elements such as wind, soil moisture or any other changes on the ground will not interfere in the mea- surements. This thesis explains how an S-band radar was built and tested. Moreover, the experiments done with a Ka-band radar used as a scatterometer are explained as well as the data processing and analysis. …

Topography Measurements Using An Airborne Ka-Band Fmcw Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, Kan Fu

Doctoral Dissertations

Radar interferometry at millimeter-wave frequencies has the ability of topography measurement of different types of terrain, such as water surfaces and tree canopies. A Ka-band interferometric radar was mounted on an airborne platform, and flown over the Connecticut river region in western Massachusetts near Amherst on June 11, 2012. More than 20 Gigabytes of raw data was recorded. This dissertation outline presents the results of the data processing, which includes (1) the estimation and removal of the embedded high frequency phase error in the raw data; (2) the synthetic aperture processing; (3) the interferometric processing. The digital elevation model (DEM) …

Scaled Synthetic Aperture Radar System Development, Ryan K. Green

Master's Theses

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems generate two dimensional images of a target area using RF energy as opposed to light waves used by cameras. When cloud cover or other optical obstructions prevent camera imaging over a target area, SAR can be substituted to generate high resolution images. Linear frequency modulated signals are transmitted and received while a moving imaging platform traverses a target area to develop high resolution images through modern digital signal processing (DSP) techniques. The motivation for this joint thesis project is to design and construct a scaled SAR system to support Cal Poly radar projects. Objectives include …

Design And Development Of A Ka-Band Interferometer For Cryospheric Applications, Harish K. Vedantham

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Topographic maps of the earth are essential to geographic and earth science studies. In particular, mapping and estimating physical parameters of the earth’s water and ice cover are critical to global climate studies. Among these, snow, ocean and fresh water topography, snow wetness and water equivalent are of immediate interest to the scientific community.

Challenges in the instrument development and deployment posed by these required measurements are twofold. Firstly, these measurements are required to have global coverage, yet maintain stringent spatial resolution and accuracy margins. Secondly, snow topography measurement requires minimal electromagnetic wave penetration through snow, hence requiring the use …