This chapter is a very basic introduction to the principle of pulsed radar. Obviously, getting a beginning concept of the main principle is one objective. Another is to introduce many terms commonly used in the radar language. Those terms which are the most essential to remember are printed in bold italics to assist you. A transmitter emits a burst of RF energy, and objects in its path will reflect the pulse back to the transmitting antenna as an echo. A steering device, called a duplexer, allows the transmitter burst to go to the antenna without damaging the receiver, and then isolates the transmitter during a listening time. The listening time is usually called live time. During live time, the echoes from any objects, called targets, are routed into the receiver.

Chapter Contents:

• Introduction
• Echo Time
• Synchronization
• Displaying the Received Echoes
• Deadtime
• Summary of the Basic Radar Principle
• Repetition Rate and Period
• Radar Detection Range
• The Antenna Radiation Pattern (Beam)
• The Isotopic Source Reference
• The Antenna Gain (Gt)
• Aperture
• Attenuation of the Echo
• Receiver Sensitivity (P r (min))
• Radar Maximum Range
• 12 dB per Octave Curves
• Other Methods for Ground Clutter Reduction
• Mitigations to the Range Equation
• CHIRP
• Diplexed Transmitters
• R max and stc in Secondary Radars
• R max Inversely Proportional to Transmitter Frequency
• More Forms of CHIRP
• Review Questions
• Answers to Review Questions

Inspec keywords: transmitting antennas; radar antennas; echo; demultiplexing equipment

Other keywords: echo; listening time; RF energy; receiver; radar language; transmitter; transmitting antenna; pulsed radar; duplexer

Subjects: Single antennas; Radar equipment, systems and applications