A Software Defined Radio Synthetic Aperture Radar

Abstract

What our project is all about

The Software Defined Radio - Synthetic Aperture Radar (SDR-SAR) is an ongoing project sponsored by Northrop Grumman. The design consists of transmit and receive horns lined on a cross pattern, each with openings for the "transceive" process needed to detect metal objects. The main objective of our version of the project is to detect metal objects at a range of 40 feet using a software defined radio instead of the old hardware-based design. The SDR-SAR can be used in many places, such as government offices and airports. The radar is meant to be hidden from view while in use and will spot metal objects that appear within its field of view.

In the previous year of the project, the radar was completed using little to no software processing. The problem that occurred during the operation of the SAR was leakage noise between the transmit horn and the closest recieve horn while detecting a metal object. As a result, the accuracy of the received data was not good enough. The previous team determined that using only hardware for the radio made fixing the problem difficult. Our design now uses software processing to fix the issue.

The team added programmable radios to filter the noise between the horns. Software is being used to model and setup the radios within the electronics box. The setup is important for performing signal tests and data management. At the start of the Spring semester, our team has gathered all the parts needed to reach the final steps of the project. After updating the old electronics box with our new parts, our team is now verifying the results of full system real world tests that we performed.

Bill of Materials