10-04-2017, 07:24 PM
Radar is an important example of an electrical engineering system. In university engineering courses, the
emphasis usually is on the basic tools of the electrical engineer such as circuit design, signals, solid state,
digital processing, electronic devices, electromagnetics, automatic control, microwaves, and so forth. But in
the real world of electrical engineering practice, these are only the techniques, piece parts, or subsystems that
make up some type of system employed for a useful purpose. In addition to radar and other sensor systems,
electrical engineering systems include communications, control, energy, information, industrial, military,
navigation, entertainment, medical, and others. These are what the practice of electrical engineering is all
about. Without them there would be little need for electrical engineers. However, the practicing engineer who
is involved in producing a new type of electrical engineering system often has to depend on acquiring
knowledge that was not usually covered in his or her engineering courses. The radar engineer, for example,
has to understand the major components and subsystems that make up a radar, as well as how they fit
together. The Radar Handbook attempts to help in this task. In addition to the radar system designer, it is
hoped that those who are responsible for procuring new radar systems, those who utilize radars, those who
maintain radar systems, and those who manage the engineers who do the above, also will find the Radar
Handbook to be of help in fulfilling such tasks.
The third edition of the Radar Handbook is evidence that the development and application of radar for both
civilian and military purposes continue to grow in both utility and in improved technology. Some of the many
advances in radar since the previous edition include the following:
- The extensive use of digital methods for improved signal processing, data processing, decision making,
flexible radar control, and multifunction radar
- Doppler weather radar
- Ground moving target indication, or GMTI
- An extensive experimental database describing low-angle land clutter, as obtained by MIT Lincoln
Laboratory, that replaced the previously widely used clutter model that dated back to World War II
- The realization that microwave sea echo at low grazing angles is due chiefly to what are called sea spikes
- The active-aperture phased array radar system using solid-state modules, also called active electronically
scanned arrays (AESA), which is attractive for some multifunction radar applications that need to manage
both power and spatial coverage
- Planetary exploration with radar
- Computer-based methods for predicting radar propagation performance in realistic environments
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- Operational use of HF over-the-horizon radar
- Improved methods for detecting moving targets in clutter, including space-time adaptive processing
- Operational use of inverse synthetic aperture radar for target recognition
- Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR, to obtain the height of a resolved scatterer or to detect
moving ground targets as well as provide a SAR image of a scene
- High precision space-based altimeters, with accuracy of a few centimeters, to measure the Earth s geoid
- Ultrawideband radar for ground penetrating and similar applications
- Improved high power, wide bandwidth klystron power sources based on clustered cavity resonators, as well
as the multiple-beam klystron
- The appearance of wide bandgap semiconductors that allow better performance because of high power and
high operating temperatures
- The availability of high-power millimeter-wave generators based on the gyroklystron
- Nonlinear FM pulse compression with low sidelobe levels
- The replacement, by the computer, of the operator as information extractor and decision maker
The above are not listed in any particular order, nor should they be considered a complete enumeration of
radar developments since the appearance of the previous edition. There were also some radar topics in
previous editions of the Radar Handbook that are of lesser interest and so were not included in this edition.
The chapter authors, who are experts in their particular field, were told to consider the reader of their
chapter as being knowledgeable in the general subject of radar and even an expert in some other particular
area of radar, but not necessarily knowledgeable about the subject of the particular chapter the author was
writing.
It should be expected that with a book in print as long as the Radar Handbook has been, not all chapter
authors from the previous editions would be available to do the third edition. Many of the previous authors
have retired or are no longer with us. Sixteen of the twenty-six chapters in this edition have authors or
coauthors who were not involved in the previous editions.
The hard work of preparing these chapters was done by the individual expert authors of the various
chapters. Thus the value of the Radar Handbook is the result of the diligence and expertise of the authors who
contributed their time, knowledge, and experience to make this handbook a useful addition to the desk of radar
system engineers and all those people vital to the development, production, and employment of radar systems.
I am deeply grateful to all the contributing authors for their fine work and the long hours they had to apply to
their task. It is the chapter authors who make any handbook a success. My sincere thanks to them all.
As stated in the Preface of the previous edition, readers who wish to reference or quote material from the
Radar Handbook are asked to mention the names of the individual chapter authors who produced the material.