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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1983

Science program for an imaging radar receiving station in Alaska. Report of the science working group

It is argued that there would be broad scientific benefit in establishing in Alaska an imaging radar receiving station that would collect data from the European Space Agency's Remote Sensing Satellite, ERS-1. This station would acquire imagery of the ice cover from the American territorial waters of the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering Seas. This station, in conjunction with similar stations proposed for Kiruna, Sweden, and Prince Albert, Canada would provide synoptic coverage of nearly the entire Arctic. The value of such coverage to aspects of oceanography, geology, glaciology, and botany is considered.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2009

Interference-Detection Module in a Digital Radar Receiver

A digital receiver in a 1.26-GHz spaceborne radar scatterometer now undergoing development includes a module for detecting radio-frequency interference (RFI) that could contaminate scientific data intended to be acquired by the scatterometer. The role of the RFI-detection module is to identify time intervals during which the received signal is likely to be contaminated by RFI and thereby to enable exclusion, from further scientific data processing, of signal data acquired during those intervals. The underlying concepts of detection of RFI and rejection of RFI-contaminated signal data are also potentially applicable in advanced terrestrial radio receivers, including software-defined radio receivers in general, receivers in cellular telephones and other wireless consumer electronic devices, and receivers in automotive collision-avoidance radar systems.

Fischman, Mark↗
NASA NTRS2008

Customizable Digital Receivers for Radar

Compact, highly customizable digital receivers are being developed for the system described in 'Radar Interferometer for Topographic Mapping of Glaciers and Ice Sheets' (NPO-43962), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 31, No. 7 (August 2007), page 72. The receivers are required to operate in unison, sampling radar returns received by the antenna elements in a digital beam-forming (DBF) mode. The design of these receivers could also be adapted to commercial radar systems. At the time of reporting the information for this article, there were no commercially available digital receivers capable of satisfying all of the operational requirements and compact enough to be mounted directly on the antenna elements. A provided figure depicts the overall system of which the digital receivers are parts. Each digital receiver includes an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a demultiplexer (DMUX), and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The ADC effects 10-bit band-pass sampling of input signals having frequencies up to 3.5 GHz. The input samples are demultiplexed at a user-selectable rate of 1:2 or 1:4, then buffered in part of the FPGA that functions as a first-in/first-out (FIFO) memory. Another part of the FPGA serves as a controller for the ADC, DMUX, and FIFO memory and as an interface between (1) the rest of the receiver and (2) a front-panel data port (FPDP) bus, which is an industry-standard parallel data bus that has a high data-rate capability and multichannel configuration suitable for DBF. Still other parts of the FPGA in each receiver perform signal-processing functions. The digital receivers can be configured to operate in a stand-alone mode, or in a multichannel mode as needed for DBF. The customizability of the receiver makes it applicable to a broad range of system architectures. The capability for operation of receivers in either a stand-alone or a DBF mode enables the use of the receivers in an unprecedentedly wide variety of radar systems.

Moller, Delwyn↗
NASA NTRS1988

Goldstone solar system radar performance analysis

A simulator was developed which models the digital baseband data paths of the planetary radar receiver system as configured in the ranging mode. The simulator is useful for qualifying the effects of digital quantization errors on radar receiver sensitivity and for predicting receiver performance. A performance analysis of the radar receiver is presented using system parameters that correspond to those for the upcoming Mars observations. Thus, the results provide an assessment of anticipated data quality for those observations.

Satorius, E.↗
NASA NTRS1991

The effect of ionospheric reflected noise on the performance of an orbital-debris radar system

An orbital-debris radar system was designed to detect the presence of small objects in low earth orbit by reflecting radio waves off the objects. The author provides a rigorous derivation of the ionospheric reflected noise power and provides an integration over the complete pulse period. Free electrons and ions contained in the ionosphere cause incoherent scatter of the radar signal. This ionospheric reflection tends to increase the noise at the terrestrial radar receiver. A parameter called the ionospheric scattering cross section per unit volume, which is a function of altitude, is useful for computing the power of the ionospheric reflection signal. The Doppler frequency speed of the ionospheric reflected signal is a function of altitude also. The ionospheric noise of a 9-GHz orbital-debris radar receiver is computed using these concepts. Annual and diurnal variations of the noise are included.

Bishop, Dennis F.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Systems and Methods for Radar Data Communication

A radar information processing system is operable to process high bandwidth radar information received from a radar system into low bandwidth radar information that may be communicated to a low bandwidth connection coupled to an electronic flight bag (EFB). An exemplary embodiment receives radar information from a radar system, the radar information communicated from the radar system at a first bandwidth; processes the received radar information into processed radar information, the processed radar information configured for communication over a connection operable at a second bandwidth, the second bandwidth lower than the first bandwidth; and communicates the radar information from a radar system, the radar information communicated from the radar system at a first bandwidth.

Bunch, Brian↗
NASA NTRS1977

Charge-coupled device data processor for an airborne imaging radar system

Processing of raw analog echo data from synthetic aperture radar receiver into images on board an airborne radar platform is discussed. Processing is made feasible by utilizing charge-coupled devices (CCD). CCD circuits are utilized to perform input sampling, presumming, range correlation and azimuth correlation in the analog domain. These radar data processing functions are implemented for single-look or multiple-look imaging radar systems.

Arens, W. E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Receiving efficiency of monostatic pulsed coherent lidars. I - Theory. II - Applications

Pulsed coherent radars' receiving efficiency, eta, is presently investigated as a function of range z on the basis of a theory which relates eta(z) to both the transmitted laser intensity and the point-source receiving efficiency; this efficiency is calculated by a backward method employing the back-propagated local oscillator (BPLO) approach. The theory is applied to the ideal case, in order to study system optimization when both the transmitted and the BPLO fields at the antenna are Gaussian. In the second part of this work, eta(z) is calculated for various conditions of the NOAA/ERL Wave Propagation Laboratory CO2 Doppler lidar; the sensitivity of eta(z) to transmitted laser beam quality, telescope focal setting, telescope power, scanner astigmatism, and system misalignment.

Zhao, Yanzeng↗
NASA NTRS1984

Radar echoes at 2.66 and 40.92 MHz from the mesosphere, part 2.6A

During recent decades, the ionospheric D region has been scanned extensively by radar in the frequency range from 1 to 60 MHz. Progress has been made in understanding the reflection/scattering of radio waves in that area. Rocket measurement of ion density irregularities were compared to radar echo observations at 2.75 MHz with the conclusion that the received radar signal was due to scattering from isotropic and homogeneous turbulence in the altitude region between 70 and 95 km. However, scattering cross sections at 2 and 6 mHz suggest that the radar echo from the region below 80 km is in part due to partial reflection from stratified layers. The VHF scattering cross section is aspect sensitive in the D region below about 75 km and tends to be isotropic at higher altitudes. Positive correlations between scattered signal power and signal correlation time (P/C) have been observed by VHF radars in the lower mesosphere, with the conclusion that it might be an additional indication of partial reflection from stratified layers. In the upper mesosphere where the P/C correlation is negative, it is generally believed that the scattering is caused by isotropic turbulence. Radar echoes at the 2.16 and 40.92 MHz ranges are compared, assuming that both result from turbulent scatter. Adjusting the radar Bragg wavelength, it was found that both sets are due to scattering from the same layer of turbulence-generated irregularities.

Royrvik, O.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Radar Thickness Measurements over the Southern Part of the Greenland Ice Sheet

We performed ice thickness measurements over the southern part of the Greenland ice sheet during June and July 1993. We used an airborne coherent radar depth sounder for these measurements. The radar was operated from a NASA P-3 aircraft equipped with GPS receivers. Radar data were collected in conjunction with laser altimeter and microwave altimeter measurements of ice surface elevation. This report provides radio echograms and thickness profiles from data collected during 1993.

Chuah, Teong Sek↗
NASA NTRS1993

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar imagery of the Gulf Stream

The advent of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (INSAR) imagery brought to the ocean remote sensing field techniques used in radio astronomy. Whilst details of the interferometry differ between the two fields, the basic idea is the same: Use the phase information arising from positional differences of the radar receivers and/or transmitters to probe remote structures. The interferometric image is formed from two complex synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. These two images are of the same area but separated in time. Typically the time between these images is very short -- approximately 50 msec for the L-band AIRSAR (Airborne SAR). During this short period the radar scatterers on the ocean surface do not have time to significantly decorrelate. Hence the two SAR images will have the same amplitude, since both obtain the radar backscatter from essentially the same object. Although the ocean surface structure does not significantly decorrelate in 50 msec, surface features do have time to move. It is precisely the translation of scattering features across the ocean surface which gives rise to phase differences between the two SAR images. This phase difference is directly proportional to the range velocity of surface scatterers. The constant of proportionality is dependent upon the interferometric mode of operation.

Ainsworth, T. L.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Feature discrimination and detection probability in synthetic aperture radar imaging system

Images obtained using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems can only represent the intensities of resolution cells in the scene of interest probabilistically since radar receiver noise and Rayleigh scattering of the transmitted radiation are always present. Consequently, when features to be identified differ only by their contribution to the mean power of the radar return, discrimination can be treated by detection theory. In this paper, we develop a 'sufficient statistic' for discriminating between competing features and compare it with some suboptimal methods frequently used. Discrimination is measured by probability of detection error and depends on number of samples or 'looks', signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and ratio of mean power returns from the competing features. Our results show discrimination and image quality rapidly saturate with SNR (very small improvement for SNR not less than 10 dB) but continue to improve with increasing number of looks.

Lipes, R. G.↗