The advent of active ESAs, the emergence of low RCS aircraft, and the growing threat of electronic countermeasures have given impetus to advanced work in several key areas of radar technology. This chapter, presents some significant developments spawned by that work: Innovative approaches to multiple-frequency operation-for reducing vulnerability to countermeasures and avoiding detection by the enemy; Advanced signal integration and detection techniques -for small target detection; Bistatic modes of radar operation - for increasing survivability and for circumventing the limitation on power-aperture product imposed by a tactical aircraft's small size; Space-time adaptive processing - for efficiently rejecting external noise and jamming and compensating for the motion - induced clutter spread with which long range surveillance radars must contend; True-time-delay beam steering - a technique still in its infancy which promises to broaden the instantaneous bandwidth of an active ESA sufficiently to enable simultaneous shared use of the same antenna for radar, electronic warfare, and communications; interferometric SAR - for making accurate high-resolution topographic maps.

Chapter Contents:

• Approaches to Multiple Frequency Operation
• Small Target Detection
• Bistatic Target Detection
• Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP)
• Photonic True-Time-Delay (TTD) Beam Steering
• Interferometric SAR (InSAR)

Inspec keywords: search radar; synthetic aperture radar; radar cross-sections; radar signal processing; space-time adaptive processing; electronic countermeasures; radar clutter; radar interferometry

Other keywords: advanced radar technique; surveillance radar; multiple-frequency operation; signal detection; space-time adaptive processing; motion-induced clutter spread; target detection; radar technology; bistatic mode; true-time-delay beam steering; high-resolution topographic map; advanced signal integration; electronic countermeasure; active ESA; RCS aircraft; interferometric SAR; jamming; external noise

Subjects: Radar and radiowave systems (military and defence); Signal processing and detection; Radar equipment, systems and applications