Coded continuous wave meteor radar
The concept of a coded continuous wave specular meteor radar (SMR) is described. The radar uses a continuously transmitted pseudorandom phase-modulated waveform, which has several advantages compared to conventional pulsed SMRs. The coding avoids range and Doppler aliasing, which are in some cases p...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2016-03-01
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| Series: | Atmospheric Measurement Techniques |
| Online Access: | http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/9/829/2016/amt-9-829-2016.pdf |
| Summary: | The concept of a coded continuous wave specular meteor radar (SMR) is described. The
radar uses a continuously transmitted pseudorandom phase-modulated
waveform, which has several advantages compared to conventional pulsed SMRs. The coding
avoids range and Doppler aliasing, which are in some cases problematic with pulsed radars.
Continuous transmissions maximize pulse compression gain, allowing operation at lower peak power than a pulsed
system. With continuous coding, the temporal and spectral resolution are not dependent on
the transmit waveform and they can be fairly flexibly changed after
performing a measurement. The low signal-to-noise ratio before pulse
compression, combined with independent pseudorandom transmit
waveforms, allows multiple geographically separated transmitters to be
used in the same frequency band simultaneously without significantly
interfering with each other. Because the same frequency band can be
used by multiple transmitters, the same interferometric receiver
antennas can be used to receive multiple transmitters at the same
time. The principles of the signal processing are discussed, in
addition to discussion of several practical ways to increase
computation speed, and how to optimally detect meteor
echoes. Measurements from a campaign performed with a coded continuous
wave SMR are shown and compared with two standard pulsed SMR
measurements. The type of meteor radar described in this paper would
be suited for use in a large-scale multi-static network of meteor
radar transmitters and receivers. Such a system would be useful for
increasing the number of meteor detections to obtain improved meteor radar data products. |
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| ISSN: | 1867-1381 1867-8548 |