Understanding Range Resolution
A drone detection radar has to often spot a difference between a drone and a bird and then be able to exactly spot, which one of those is indeed not a bird when the drone might be seen with a flock in the background and in yet a more difficult situation help identify a rogue drone entry amongst the friendly ones, often a challenging task for the legacy radars. Let’s understand each of the factors affecting the verification process, which the smart Radar will have to factor while being deployed for Drone detection duties.
Range resolution in radar refers to a radar’s ability to distinguish between multiple targets that are close together but at different distances. It’s the smallest separation between two quantities that the radar can identify. Range resolution is dependent on the transmitted waveform and inversely proportional to the signal bandwidth.
A radar system can distinguish between targets separated by half the pulse width. Finer resolution can be achieved by transmitting a linear frequency modulated (chirp) pulse, followed by pulse compression techniques on the received waveforms.
The degree of range resolution depends on the width of the transmitted pulse and the type and size of the target.
As an example, A radar operating in the 24 to 24.25GHz band has a range resolution of about 60cm, however, a 77GHz radar operating with 1GHz bandwidth has a range resolution of about 15cm, now imagine the range resolution of the Air Defence Radars operating in S band and the Ground surveillance Radars operating X band.
Till the time, these Radars were meant to track larger aircrafts or cars or trucks, the Range resolution wasn’t an issue at all, however, for the IFF function in drone detection missions, a range resolution in a meter or two is an essential criterion.
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