Radar equation

Radars are electromagnetic devices used for detection and location of objects. The term radar is derived from RADIO DETECTION and RANGING.

 In a typical radar system as shown in the figure ,pulses of EM energy are transmitted to a distant object. The same antenna is used for transmitting and receiving. The time interval between the transmitted and reflected pulses is used to determine the distance of the target.

 If r is the distance between radar and target and c is the speed of light , the elapsed time between the transmitted and received pulse is 2r/c.

The ability of the target to scatter energy is characterized by SCATERRING CRSS SECTION of the target. The scattering cross section has the units of area and can be measured experimentally.

 Scattering can be mathematically shown as.

Where Pi is the incident power density at the target T while Ps is the scattered power density at the transreceiver. The incident power Pi can be written as:

 The power received at the transreceiver is

Note that Pi and Ps are the time average power densities in watts/m^2 and Prad and Pr are the powers in Watts. Since Gdt=Gdt=Gd and Aer=Aet=Ae therefore , we can put the values of Pi and Ps to obtain

 can be obtained as

 The equation derived

is called radar transmission equation. This equation is for monostatic type radar. For bistatic radar , the transmitter and receiver are separated for which Gdt is not equal to Gdr, thus the equation becomes.

The equation Is called radar range equation