A new measurement approach is disclosed that facilitates significantly smaller size, weight, and power (SWaP) spaceborne radar systems that can provide wide swath, high resolution observations. Multiple beams employed in the scan and the complex volume and/or surface backscatter signals of each beam is recorded. Each beam is electronically swept in azimuth where each beam is held at a constant incidence angle over the azimuth sector that covers the swath. Once the sweep is complete, the platform moves forward, by one along track pixel, and the sweep is repeated in order to provide continuous mapping of the volume and surface covered by the swath. Complex volume backscatter is recorded and mapped to each altitude layer to provide full mapping of the atmosphere.

Example embodiments describe a radar sensor, whereby the radar sensor comprises a pair of continuous wave (CW) radar transceivers that each has a leaky wave antenna that are provided adjacent to each other. Each CW radar transceiver comprises a microwave frequency transmission circuit configured to transmit and receive signals reflected off a nearby object. The transmitted and received signals are then processed by the radar sensor to determine a relative displacement between the detected object and the radar sensor. This determined relative displacement may then be used with machine learning techniques to identify dynamic gestures made within the radar sensor's range of detection.

Techniques and apparatuses are described for radar angular ambiguity resolution. These techniques enable a target's angular position to be determined from a spatial response that has multiple amplitude peaks. Instead of solely considering which peak has a highest amplitude, the techniques for radar angular ambiguity resolution select a frequency sub-spectrum, or multiple frequency sub-spectrums, that emphasize amplitude or phase differences in the spatial response and analyze an irregular shape of the spatial response across a wide field of view to determine the target's angular position. In this way, each angular position of the target has a unique signature, which the radar system can determine and use to resolve the angular ambiguities. Using these techniques, the radar can have an antenna array element spacing that is greater than half a center wavelength of a reflected radar signal that is used to detect the target.

A radar image processing method includes acquiring captured images from radars synchronized to perform beamforming on a same point at a same time, synthesizing the captured images based on at least one overlapping area of the captured images, and generating a high-resolution image based on the synthesized images.

A radar system for the detection of drones, including a transmitter, a receiver and a processor, wherein the processor is arranged to process demodulated return signals in a first process using a Doppler frequency filter, and to store locations of any detections therefrom, and to process the demodulated signals in a second process to look for signal returns indicative of a preliminary target having a rotational element at a location, and should a detection be found in the second process, to then attempt to match a location of the preliminary target with returns from the first process, and to provide a confirmed detection if a location of a detection from the first process matches with the location of a detection from the second process. The disclosed subject matter enables improved detection rates for drones, by looking for outputs from both the first and second processes.

Systems and methods for rapidly finding detectable signals within the field-of-view of a phased array antenna. The transmit beam pattern is modified over time to increase signal spatial search performance over typical time-delay steering by producing a coarse-to-fine angular beam pattern with a tree-based approach to signal detection. A tree-based beam search is employed to select a beam having a narrower beamwidth for transmission at an angle from boresight that lies in an angular space where a signal has been previously detected.

A drone detection radar can include a plurality of antenna systems, each antenna system being arranged to transmit a signal into an associated sector, and to receive signals reflected from targets in the sector, the sectors collectively forming a monitored volume, and wherein a sub-set of the antenna systems are active at any one time, with the active sub-set of antenna systems being arranged to monitor their respective volumes for a duration sufficient to measure Doppler signals associated with slow moving drones, with the radar being arranged to switch to a different sub-set of antenna systems after each duration, such that the whole volume is monitored within a predetermined period. Combining a staring array from an antenna system with a plurality of switched antenna system allows drones to be both detected and tracked, with appropriate selection of the predetermined period.

Examples disclosed herein relate to reconfigurable circuits and systems for a radar system enabling both short-range and long-range operation. A reconfiguration module enables the various configuration changes for operation. The multi-range operation may be used to adjust transmission parameters of other modules including wireless communications.

While a radar waveform generator coupled to a phased antenna array is inactive, a beam steering command is provided to the phased antenna array to cause the phased antenna array be configured for a given transmit and receive direction. While the radar waveform generator is active, received radar results are assigned to the given transmit and receive direction. the providing of the command and the assigning are repeated for a plurality of additional transmit and receive directions corresponding to a desired scan area.

A level radar device with adaptive, angle-dependent transmission power adjustment, which calculates the maximum permissible transmission power of the transmitted signal on the basis of the radiation direction of the transmitted signal and the radiation characteristic of an antenna.