A Coherent on Receive X-Band Marine Radar for Ocean Observations

Marine radars are increasingly popular for monitoring meteorological and oceanographic parameters such as ocean surface wind, waves and currents as well as bathymetry and shorelines. Within this paper a coherent on receive marine radar is introduced, which is based on an incoherent off the shelf pulsed X-band radar. The main concept of the coherentization is based on the coherent on receive principle, where the coherence is achieved by measuring the phase of the transmitted pulse from a leak in the radar circulator, which then serves as a reference phase for the transmitted pulse. The Doppler shift frequency can be computed from two consecutive pulse-pairs in the time domain or from the first moment of the Doppler spectrum inferred by means of a short time Fast Fourier Transform. From the Doppler shift frequencies, radial speed maps of the backscatter of the ocean surface are retrieved. The resulting backscatter intensity and Doppler speed maps are presented for horizontal as well as vertical polarization, and discussed with respect to meteorological and oceanographic applications.

Calibration of Spatial Rain Scanner using Rainfall Depth of Rain Gauges

A spatial rain scanner has been developed based on a marine radar to satisfy the demand for spatial rain information for hydrological applications. Since the coverage of the rain scanner is 44 km in radius, it is necessary to expand the coverage by installing it in two sites that intersect each other performing a radar network. For this purpose, the first rain scanner has been installed at the Center for Atmospheric Science and Technology (PSTA) in Bandung and the second one at the Space and Atmospheric Observation Center (BPAA) Tanjungsari in Sumedang. This paper focuses on the calibration of radar observations with rainfall data from 7 rain gauges installed in Bandung area and its surroundings. The calibration method calculates rainfall depth (three parameters) instead of only the intensity of rainfall. The data period used for this research is from March to November 2020. The rain scanners have better rainfall events detection over basin area, such as Dayeuh Kolot and Cidurian, than over highland area, such as Lembang. Two calibration methods are used, and the results show that the calibration by calculating three parameters (accumulated reflectivity, duration, and intensity) in the linear model is able to measure rainfall estimation better than using a linear model with one parameter (accumulated reflectivity) for rainfall depth more than 10 mm. Rainfall estimation calculation using scheme 1 tends to underestimate while scheme 2 tends to overestimate.

A Hybrid Method for Inland Ship Recognition Using Marine Radar and Closed-Circuit Television

Vessel recognition plays important role in ensuring navigation safety. However, existing methods are mainly based on a single sensor, such as automatic identification system (AIS), marine radar, closed-circuit television (CCTV), etc. To this end, this paper proposes a coarse-to-fine recognition method by fusing CCTV and marine radar, called multi-scale matching vessel recognition (MSM-VR). This method first proposes a novel calibration method that does not use any additional calibration target. The calibration is transformed to solve an N point registration model. Furthermore, marine radar image is used for coarse detection. A region of interest (ROI) area is computed for coarse detection results. Lastly, we design a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) called VesNet and transform the recognition into feature extraction. The VesNet is used to extract the vessel features. As a result, the MVM-VR method has been validated by using actual datasets collected along different waterways such as Nanjing waterway and Wuhan waterway, China, covering different times and weather conditions. Experimental results show that the MSM-VR method can adapt to different times, different weather conditions, and different waterways with good detection stability. The recognition accuracy is no less than 96%. Compared to other methods, the proposed method has high accuracy and great robustness.

Design of Linear Array for Shaped Beams using Enhanced Flower Pollination Optimization Algorithm for Marine Radar Applications

In order to generate narrow beams with individual heights of sidelobes, we perform a synthesis of sum patterns. The side lobes can be adjusted to any arbitrary specification and flat top far field radiation patterns using Enhanced Flower Pollination Algorithm (EFPA) is presented in this paper. The problem of designing an array can be expressed as an optimization problem that aims to reduce the first two sidelobes to -50dB and by reducing the remaining sidelobes to -40dB. The EFPA is applied to determine the excitation coefficients of their amplitudes so as to obtain the required pattern. The objective for case 2 is to obtain the flat top sector beam for specified angular regions. Complex excitation coefficients are determined using EFPA for various beam widths. The radiation patterns are generated numerically using the obtained excitation coefficients. The results reveal that not only the ripples are controlled in the trade-in region, but also maintained sidelobe levels in the acceptable limits. The results presented are very much useful for marine radar applications.

Wave Measurements Using Multi-Frame Processing of Marine Radar Data

Marine radars have proven to be useful for measuring ocean waves, but the accuracy of the measurements is limited by several factors including the look-angle dependence of the radar signals as well as noise in the radar data. The look-angle dependence introduces a systematic error or bias in the measurements, and noise causes a random error. This paper describes a method of combining data from multiple radar frames that is optimal in the sense of minimizing the error for a set of biased measurements with random additive noise. The results are shown experimentally to increase the correlation of the radar estimates with buoy measurements.

Functionality Investigation of the UAV Arranged FMCW Solid-State Marine Radar

Some models of marine radars are light-weight enough and thus are attractive for potential applications when arranged on UAVs. Elevating a marine radar to high altitudes provides a much wider field of view, however, this could lead to a higher radio interference level. The practical estimation of the radio interferences affecting the solid-state FMCW marine radar at altitudes up to 120 m was the main objective of this contribution. A rotary-wing octocopter UAV was developed and built for the experiments. Two different kinds of interferences were observed at higher altitudes. Ray-like interferences were caused by signals, which are received by the radar’s antenna. Circle-like interferences appear due to the low frequency interfering signal directly penetrating the detector due to insufficient receiver screening.

Compact Slotted Waveguide Antenna Array Using Staircase Model of Tapered Dielectric-Inset Guide for Shipboard Marine Radar

This paper presents a new configuration of a slotted waveguide antenna (SWA) array aimed at the X-band within the desired band of 9.38~9.44 GHz for shipboard marine radars. The SWA array, which typically consists of a slotted waveguide, a polarizing filter, and a metal reflector, is widely employed in marine radar applications. Nonetheless, conventional slot array designs are weighty, mechanically complex, and geometrically large to obtain high performances, such as gain. These features of the conventional SWA are undesirable for the shipboard marine radar, where the antenna rotates at high angular speed for the beam scanning mechanism. The proposed SWA array herein reduces the conventional design’s size by 62% using a tapered dielectric-inset guide structure. It shows high gain performance (up to 30 dB) and obtains improvements in radiation efficiency (up to 80% in the numerical simulations) and weight due to the use of loss and low-density dielectric material.