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Radar Revisited (review of "Radar Handbook, 3rd ed." by Merrill Skolnik) [Book
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Article  in  IEEE Microwave Magazine · September 2008

DOI: 10.1109/MMM.2008.924964 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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while this book mentions many of the
factors contributing to intersymbol
interference and affecting signal
integrity, books such as High Speed
Digital Design have much more infor-
mation on signal integrity.
Overall this book largely succeeds
at providing one source for jitter
information which has been spread
widely over technical papers, chap-
ters in books, industrial standards,
and company application notes. Most
users will benefit from researching
papers, standards and even applica-
tion notes on jitter as well as Dr. Li’s
book and the references mentioned.
This book serves as a useful reference
and a good source on the characteri-
zation of jitter.
Reviewed by Alfy Riddle
Radar Revisited
T
his is the third edition of an
established handbook (with the
earlier editions having appeared
in 1970 and 1990), edited by one of
the most-recognized names in the
field of radar technology, who has
worked in the field for several
decades, has been closely involved in
the development of several genera-
tions of naval radars, and has
authored a well-known textbook on
radar systems (Introduction to Radar
Systems, also in 3rd edition). A reader
can therefore rightfully expect the
volume to be authoritative, up-to-
date, and comprehensive. While
some of those expectations will be
met by this volume, others will only
be moderately satisfied.
The volume is a compilation of 26
chapters, authored by individuals
with a thorough command of, and
impeccable credentials in, the topics
of their chapters. Most chapters have
a large numbers of figures (up to sev-
eral dozen), and extensive bibliogra-
phies, ranging to several hundred
items. While most figures are repro-
duced from other sources, they have
been often been adapted or modified
for this volume (e.g., to conform to a
uniform system of units), thus attest-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2008.924964
August 2008
ing to the painstaking efforts devoted
to the preparation of the volume.
The 26 chapters vary a great deal
in their nature and degree of cover-
age, and it will almost be easier to
write 26 separate reviews than one
covering the entire volume. The chap-
ters range from fairly quantitative
and mathematical ones (such as the
on phased array radar antennas) to
cursory and descriptive ones (like the
one on civil marine radar). Some sec-
tions of the volume (such as on radar
cross section) represent a concise and
readable summary of the state-of-the
art of knowledge on their topics; oth-
ers (such as on cross-field amplifiers)
are a sketchy collection of remarks for
which it is difficult to identify the
benefits to be derived by the reader.
Another factor that makes the review
difficult is the wide scope of the vol-
ume, which has been made possible by
keeping the treatment of most topics at
an introductory level. Thus the content
on many subjects included in the
volume—whether digital signal pro-
cessing, solid-state transmitters, or
meteorological radar—cannot be
expected to allow the reader to develop
a skill useful at a professional level in
those topics. The most one can expect to
gain is some vocabulary and a qualita-
tive appreciation of considerations
involved. The volume is therefore use-
ful someone with little background in,
and only a modest need for an overview
or qualitative familiarity with, the topic
to be looked up. It is not clear for whom
the device cross-sections and the cur-
rent-voltage characteristic of a transistor
included in this volume would be use-
ful, and for what purpose.
In effect, this calls into question the
role to be played by the handbook.
This handbook is neither like an old-
fashioned German handbuch with an
exhaustive coverage of its domain,
nor a traditional handbook filled with
tables, formulas, charts and design
data that are to be consulted in
response to a very specific need. This
is more a collection of survey articles,
with mostly descriptive and qualita-
tive information at varying levels of
depth. There is little coordination
between chapters where similar top-
ics may be discussed, and a lack of
any cross-referencing. This weakness
is compounded by the weak indexing
despite an 18-page index; for exam-
ple, the index refers to the discussion
of radar signal attenuation in Chapter
19, but does not direct the reader at all
to an entire section entitled attenua-
tion in Chapter 21.
The volume remains firmly wedded
to the historic origins of the field of
radar systems—namely military and
navigation radars and their applications
to other areas, such as remote sensing
and meteorology. There are numerous
photographs of such radars in the book.
The classical radar topics such as MTI
radar, pulse Doppler radar, pulse com-
pression radar, and tracking radar each
receive attention in chapters devoted
specifically to them. It would be diffi-
cult to decipher recent trends and areas
of intense interest in the field from the
contents of the volume. For example,
despite the fact that in 2008 (the date of
publication of this volume), when there
are multiple manufacturers offering
automobile radars as options in cars,
and the prospects are that automotive
radars will become as common place as
airbags in vehicles and that will be
Radar Handbook, 3rd ed.
Merrill Skolnik, ed.
ISBN 978-0-07-148547-0
©2008 McGraw-Hill
www.mhprofessional.com
1328 pages US$165.00
129
 Recently Published Books
This listing is intended to bring to the attention of the read-
ers a sample of some recently published books within the
field of interest of the IEEE Microwave Magazine. For infor-
mation on submissions, contact the column editor at
m.gupta@ieee.org.
—M.S. Gupta, Column Editor.
Arvind Raghavan, Nuttapong Srirattana, and Joy Laskar,
Modeling and Design Techniques for Radio-Frequency
Power Amplifiers (IEEE Press and John Wiley, 2008).
206 pp. [ISBN: 978-0-471-71746-1].
Topics: Device modeling for CAD; empirical modeling for
bipolar devices; scalable modeling for RF MOSFETs; power
amplifier IC design; power amplifier design in silicon; effi-
ciency enhancement of RF power amplifiers.
Walton C. Gibson, The Method of Moments and
Electromagnetics (CRC Press, 2007). 288 pp.
[ISBN: 978-1-420061451].
Topic: Computational electromagnetics; review of electromag-
netics; method of moments; thin wires; two-dimensional
problems; bodies of revolution; three-dimensional problems;
fast multipole method; integration.
Chi H. Lee, ed., Microwave Photonics, Optical Science
and Engineering Series, vol. 124 (CRC Press, 2006).
440 pp. [ ISBN: 978-0-849-33924-3].
Topics: concepts, devices, and applications of microwave
photonics; femto-second all-optical devices for ultra-fast
communication and signal processing; direct-modulation
of injection-locked semiconductor lasers; optical measure-
ment technologies for high-frequency electronics; hybrid
fiber radio concepts and prospects; high dynamic range
digital radio-over-fiber links; photonic synthesis of ultra-
broadband arbitrary electromagnetic waveforms; ultra-fast
optoelectronic switching devices and applications based on
optically injected free carriers; Tera-sample-per-second
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2008.924966
manufactured in annual quantities that
will dwarf the number of all other
radars ever made since the birth of the
field in Second World War, this volume
makes no mention of automobile radars
Recent Advances in Microwave Theory and Applications
or considerations specific to them.
The volume will appeal to the gen-
eralists with interest in the conven-
tional radar subjects, and to others as
a starting point for locating sources
November 21 – 24, 2008; Jaipur (India)
Conference Web site: http://www.uniraj.ernet.in/~microwave
with more detailed information.
Reviewed by Madhu Gupta
130
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time-stretched analog-to-digital conversion; terahertz
photonics.
C. M. Krowne and Yong Zhang, eds., Physics of
Negative Refraction and Negative Index Materials:
Optical and Electronic Aspects and Diversified
Approaches. Springer series in Materials Science,
Volume 98 (Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg,
September 2007) 380 pp. [ ISBN: 978-3-540-72131-4].
Topics: Negative refraction (NR) of EM waves and electron
waves in uniform media, anisotropic left-handed (LH) guided
wave structures, NR in bicrystals, LH magnetic granular
materials, spatial dispersion and polaritons NR behavior, NR
in photonic crystals, NR & subwavelength focusing in 2D
photonic crystals, NR & imaging with quasi-crystals, NR in
acoustic mediums, NR in SRRs and 2D SRR and metallic
photonic crystals, guided wave bands in SRR-rod LH unit
cells, negative index materials using SRRs for RF lens,
nonlinear LH effects.
Dwight L. Woolard, James O. Jensen, R. Jennifer Hwu,
and Michael S. Shur, Terahertz Science and Technology
for Military and Security Applications. Selected Topics
in Electronics and Systems series, vol. 46 (World
scientific Publishing Co., 2007). 260 pp.
[ISBN: 978-981-277-179-7].
A collection of 19 papers on terahertz spectroscopic phenom-
ena, molecular identification and screening, imaging, sensors,
sources, and detectors, published as a special issue of the
International Journal of High Speed Electronics and Systems.
Terence W. Barrett, Topological Foundations of
Electromagnetism (World Scientific Publishing Co.,
2008). 196 pp. [ISBN: 978-981-277-996-0].
Topics: Electromagnetic phenomenon requiring extension or
generalization of Maxwell’s theory; The Sagnac Effect due to
conservation of action due to gauge field global conformal
invariance in a multiply joined topology of coherent fields;
topological approaches to electromagnetism.
International Conference
on
(Microwave-08)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2008.927892
August 2008