Fiber-optic radar calibration

A simple fiber-optic radar calibration target is described. Its operation is based on a wideband fiber, a laser transmitter that is directly modulated by the down-converted radar signal and an optical diode receiver recovering said signal. Further up-conversion having a common local oscillator with the first mixer ensures fidelity of the calibration return. Measured useful bandwidth exceeds 200 MHz and practically any radar RF frequency can be handled when suitable mixers are employed. Amplifiers can be added to the down-converted path as desired to compensate for the fiber loss. Modulation and LO sweep provide easy ways of introducing artificial fluctuations and Doppler frequencies. Particularly pulsed radars are readily tested with the proposed scheme as no restrictions are posed by the radar's TR-switch delays.     

Millimeter wave radar with clutter measurements

A portable millimeter wave test radar system, also suitable for battery operation, gives interesting possibilities for clutter recordings at hard-to-reach sites. The designed system covers all common radar frequencies from the Ka- to V-bands and enables spatial detection of targets or clutter elements within an adjustable time gate, whereby spatial clutter profiles of rain can be analyzed. The construction allows full operation with non-scanning antennas as well. This is advantageous when measuring temporal RCS variations of selected targets or surface clutter from snow dunes.     

A baseband Doppler simulator for radar system development

Elementary electronics building blocks can be configured as a low-cost baseband Doppler simulator for developing the post-detector processing parts such as MTIs and MTDS of millimeter wave pulsed radars employing amplitude and phase channels. The challenge of narrow pulses in conjunction to low Doppler frequencies is handled here by CMOS switches and normal function generator ICs. Test noise is generated with an off-the-shelf radio RF/IF circuit. Wideband video amplifiers are not required. Typical performance figures include pulse widths from 50 ns, target ranges from 0 to ambiguity maximum, target velocities from 0.5 m/s to 500 m/s and PRFs up to 100 kflz. Virtual target RCS can be adjusted as needed in a straightforward way.     

Effects of test vehicle patterns on cellular coverage measurements

Mobile test systems intended for cellular phone coverage measurements suffer from uncertainties, which are caused by the unpredictable radiation pattern of the measuring antenna installation. Not only do adjacent structures and very common multiple antennas disturb the characteristics, but also in the case of an ideal position does the vertical lobing introduce errors exceeding 10 dB. The problems are likely to be worse in dense urban areas, where multipath from surrounding buildings is the dominating propagation mode     

Sensor systems signal processing platform

A field programmable gate array-based computing platform for high-speed sensors such as short-range radars is presented. The circuit performs necessary A/D conversions, raw data stream compression and target detection, and constructs a message structure suitable for external displays. In the prototype, USB is the connecting path to a laptop computer. An elementary pulse radar is utilized as an application example. An application interest would be in collision avoidance systems. Observed data transfer rates with real radar input signals were 36 Mbytes/s when typical target detection algorithms were applied.     

A phase controlled antenna system for anti-jamming purposes

A phase controlled antenna system has been constructed for aircraft EW purposes. With only two radiating elements conventionally installed on top of the fuselage, the system is capable of introducing a 30 dB radiation pattern minimum to desired or optimized directions. The system uses computer controlled parallel down conversion technique, which gives the freedom to automatically adjust for any anomalies in the respective individual element patterns, normally caused by the airframe structures. The same computer can be used for active search-and-minimize procedures. Extensive tests have been performed with an F-18 scale model to verify the system performance     

The story behind Finnish telecommunications industry: militaryradio systems and electronic warfare in Finland during World War II(1939-1945)

The growth of the Finnish telecommunications industry is not only based on the common Nordic need of talking to each other nor is it only dependent on the generally superior technical skills achieved through education but also has its tradition, which dates back to the years of WW II, when Finland was alone at the most critical moments of the nation's history and had to develop procedures and technologies to survive. From post-war documents, a connecting link can be found between key persons and organizations, which were once designing military electronics, but later adopted their know-how to the needs of public communications     

Characterizing wood by microwaves

Common properties of raw wood can be determined by measuring the microwave propagation in the media. Unlike early designs from the 1970s and 1980s, simple constructions with phase and attenuation recording are now possible, if optimal frequencies are selected. At K-band, most quality impairments can be detected from basic group delay measurements, e.g., knots or insect holes smaller than 5 mm are observable. Impairments can be detected from a non-parallel viewing direction     

The (r)evolution and stagnation of higher education in EE ever thepast decades

The current university education of electrical and electronics engineers has evolved from the well-established system of the 1950's to a wishy-washy mixture operating with lots of ill-motivated or less-qualified students, a process mostly accelerated by the growth in the telecommunications industry. External projects take staff time and the curriculum continues to threaten youngsters with de-focused mathematics. The computer age has reduced the interest in experimental research, and the continuation of science in the systems level may be in danger     

Experiments with numerically controlled atomic clocks

Long term timing stability of present atomic clocks can be considerably improved by simple numerical algorithms which correct both the inherent frequency bias and the effects of supply voltage variations and outside temperature. Rubidium units are demonstrated to operate with less than 100 ns errors per week or any sensible longer interval corresponding to relative uncertainties of 10^-13. Often a linear subtraction of frequency offset which can be realized by a microprocessor controlled digital delay line is sufficient. A cesium clock could be run at 10^-15 level, but reliable and reasonable real-time measurement techniques do not yet exist