SYNTHETIC-APERTURE INTERFEROMETRIC RADAR WITH AN ANTENNA SLIDING ALONG A ROTATING ARM

Abstract

An interferometric radar comprising an arm (2), which rotates with respect to an axis (z) of a plane (zx) orthogonal to an axis of rotation (y), a system of antennas (1), which are fixed to said arm (2), are able both to move along the arm and to describe complete revolutions along a circular path about said axis (y), and are oriented in a direction of sight (a) parallel to the axis (y), motor-drive means (3) for driving the arm (2) and the system of antennas along the arm, a data-acquisition and processing unit (10) operatively connected to said antenna (1) for acquiring a succession of images detected by the antenna during its revolution about the axis (y) and making differential interferometric calculations for measuring at least one component of the displacement of one or more targets in the field of view.

Claims

1. A synthetic-aperture interferometric radar comprising: an arm, which rotates with respect to an axis of a plane orthogonal to an axis of rotation; a system of one or more transmitting and receiving antennas, which are slidably mounted along said arm so as to be able to describe complete revolutions of variable radius along a circular path about said axis of rotation and said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas are oriented in a direction of sight parallel to said axis of rotation; a motor-drive means for driving rotation of said arm; a motor-drive means for driving bi-directional sliding of said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas along said arm; and a data-acquisition and processing unit, operatively connected to said system of said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas and said data-acquisition and processing unit configured for acquiring a succession of images detected by said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas during rotation of said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas about said axis of rotation and said data-acquisition and processing unit making differential interferometric calculations on at least two successive images of possible targets located in a field of view of said system of said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas in order to measure at least one component of displacement thereof.

2. The radar according to claim 1, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit processes data detected on sections of an area scanned by said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas and calculates interferograms between images acquired from one of said sections in order to obtain two components of displacements of one or more targets.

3. The radar according to claim 1, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit processes data detected along three distinct sections of an area scanned by said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas and said data-acquisition and processing unit calculates interferograms between successive images acquired from one arc in order to obtain three components of said displacement in three directions of at least one of said targets.

4. The radar according to claim 1, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit applies a direct or inverse radial windowing on acquired data.

5. A method for monitoring displacements of one or more targets by means of an interferometric radar, the method comprising: providing an arm, which rotates with respect to an axis of a plane orthogonal to an axis of rotation; providing a system of one or more transmitting and receiving antennas, which are slidably mounted along said arm so as to be able to describe complete revolutions of variable radius along a circular path about said axis of rotation and said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas are oriented in a direction of sight parallel to said axis of rotation; providing a motor-drive means for driving said arm; providing a motor-drive means for moving said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas bi-directionally along said arm; providing a data-acquisition and processing unit operatively connected to said system; acquiring a succession of images detected by said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas during rotation of said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas about said axis of rotation; and calculating differential interferometric on at least two successive images of possible targets located in a field of view of said system in order to measure at least one component of displacement thereof.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit processes data detected on sections of an area scanned by said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas and said data-acquisition and processing unit calculates interferograms between said images acquired from one of said sections in order to obtain two components of displacements of one or more of said targets.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit processes data detected along three distinct sections of a semipath and said data-acquisition and processing unit calculates interferograms between successive images acquired from one section of arc in order to obtain three components of said displacement in three directions of one of said targets.

8. The method according to claim 5, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit applies a direct or inverse radial windowing on acquired data.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit applies a direct or inverse radial windowing on acquired data.

10. The method according to claim 7, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit applies a direct or inverse radial windowing on acquired data.

11. The method according to claim 6, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit processes said data detected along three distinct sections of a semipath and said data-acquisition and processing unit calculates said interferograms between successive images acquired from one section of arc in order to obtain three components of said displacement in three directions of one of said targets.

12. The radar according to claim 2, wherein said data-acquisition and processing unit processes said data detected along three distinct sections of said area scanned by said one or more transmitting and receiving antennas and said data-acquisition and processing unit calculates said interferograms between successive images acquired from one arc in order to obtain three components of said displacement in three directions of at least one of said targets.

Description

LIST OF THE DRAWINGS

[0014] The above and further advantages will be better understood by any person skilled in the branch from the ensuing description and from the annexed drawings, which are provided by way of non-limiting example and in which:

[0015] FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a rotating radar antenna according to the invention;

[0016] FIG. 2 shows a possible path of the antenna system in the plane xz;

[0017] FIG. 3 shows another possible path of the antenna system in the plane xz; and

[0018] FIG. 4 shows a possible division into sections of the plane scanned by the antennas so as to obtain three components of the displacement of the targets in the field of view.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] With reference to the attached drawings, a radar R according to the invention is described, which comprises an acquisition and processing unit 10, which receives the data detected by at least one antenna 1, which rotates in the plane zx orthogonal to the direction of sight y of the antenna and is fixed to an arm 2 that can be set in rotation by a motor-drive support 3.

[0020] The antenna 1 can slide along the arm 2 by means of a motor-drive system (not shown), which enables the two-dimensional movement of the antenna along the arm.

[0021] In various embodiments, the motor drive 11 of the antennas along the arm 2 may be independent or not of the motor drive that enables rotary motion of the arm 2, and there may moreover be provided means for synchronisation of the rotary movement and of the linear movement of the antennas. The radar R moreover comprises a data-acquisition and processing unit 10, which is operatively connected to said system of antennas 1 and is configured for acquiring a succession of images detected by the antenna during its revolution about the axis y and making differential interferometric calculations on at least two successive images of possible targets T located in the field of view of the system of antennas 1 in order to measure at least one component of the displacement thereof.

[0022] FIG. 1 is a schematically representation of the case of a single antenna 1, but the antenna 1 may be equivalently constituted by two or more antennas (one for transmitting and one for receiving).

[0023] In preferred examples of operation, the movement of the antenna may be obtained in different ways, amongst which: [0024] 1) stepper mode: the arm turns in steps (which are sufficiently short to prevent any angular ambiguity in reconstruction of the image); when the arm has described a complete revolution or circular path C, the antenna shifts along the arm (by a step that is sufficiently short to prevent any angular ambiguity in reconstruction of the image) and then performs another revolution; in this way, in discrete steps the entire surface P swept by the arm, or scanning plane, is covered; the circular steps may be of a constant angle or else, in order to reduce the acquisition time, of a constant arc; [0025] 2) spiral mode (FIG. 2): the arm turns at a constant rate, and the antenna moves radially at a constant rate; for each revolution, the radial movement must be sufficiently small as not to produce any angular ambiguity in the image (the pitch depends upon the lobe of the antenna; in the worst case that corresponds to the omnidirectional antenna, it must be less than a quarter of the wavelength); the movement as a whole appears as a spiral from the periphery to the centre, or vice versa; [0026] 3) complex-spiral mode (FIG. 3): the arm turns at a constant rate and the antenna moves radially at a non-constant rate; in this case, the antenna describes a shape L in the plane that may resemble a flower with a number of petals or other shapes depending upon how the radial velocity of the antenna varies in time.

[0027] The data of an entire acquisition may be appropriately windowed, with a radial window, in order to reduce the side lobes. In the case where sampling is obtained with the stepper mode with constant spatial spacing, the window may be for example a classic window that weights the centre more than the periphery. In the case of stepper acquisition at constant angle (or equivalently at constant time of sampling of the spiral movement) the window will have to be of an inverse type, i.e., one that weights the periphery more than the centre.

[0028] The data of an entire acquisition, processed by means of synthetic-aperture techniques, supply a three-dimensional image of the field of view that contains also the phase information. By exploiting two images taken at different time intervals (for example, in succession) it is possible to measure the possible radial displacements of the targets in the field of view by calculating the phase difference in the corresponding image point, applying the known interferometric techniques.

[0029] A possible variant of the technique makes use only of one part of the acquired data. For example, it is possible to process separately the samples of the top semicircle and the samples of the bottom semicircle. In this way, two images are obtained with an angular resolution that is lower than that of the image obtained with the entire circle, but with the advantage that two components of the possible displacement of a target in the field of view are obtained: the component from the image point of the target to the phase centre of the top semicircle, and the component from the image point of the target to the phase centre of the bottom semicircle. The entire circle may also be processed in three sections (FIG. 4), which may also partially overlap, so as to obtain the three components of the displacement vector.

[0030] The present invention has been described according to preferred embodiments, but equivalent variants may be conceived without thereby departing from the sphere of protection of the invention.