Design & Fabricate A Prototype of Low Cost Phased Array Radar

The objectives of this thesis are given below:

a) To be acquainted with the concept and methodology of developing a cost effective phased array radar;

b) To attain knowledge on Radar properties such as radiation efficiency, pulse width, beam width, beam pattern, pulse repetition frequency, duty cycle, elevation angle, azimuth angle, array factor, grating lobes, mutual coupling, array bandwidth etc;

c) To simulate the radar reception data for different RCS shapes such as sphere target, corner target, square target using various software: MATLAB, System Vue Software;

d) To evaluate the performance of the recorded data with threshold accepted values.

e) To simulate the desired system incorporating low cost microwave radar devices and to attain high gain, high efficiency and low noise performance with the used parameters;

f) To study and gather knowledge about the built in MATLAB codes of the microstrip antenna device and to change it accordingly to manipulate the parameters to meet the purpose of the thesis; g) To analyze various parameters including shape, orientation, Radar absorbent material, operating frequency and aspect angle which RCS depends on;

h) To enhance the capacity of the system of the micro strip antenna;

Digital beam forming (DBF) is a big advantage for phased array radar in comparison

with conventional radars. In DBF in each individual radiating element there is a receiver. The down-converting to IF-frequency and digitizing is realized at each individual antenna element. Noise and signal distortion in each receiver are decorrelated among all receivers. The benefits of DBF includes improved dynamic range, controlling of multiple beams and better and faster control of amplitude and phase.

This work has investigated the design considerations required to design, fabricate and test high performance linearly polarized planar antennae at 20 GHz to 28 GHz using the CST. Deviations from the simulated designs were found to be more influenced. The relative permittivity estimation was of particular importance in determining the antenna resonant frequency. At 5.2 GHz, significant deviations were observed for FR4 substrates whose dielectric constant was not accurately characterized. The sharp frequency response of the reflection coefficient at 5 GHz was found to be a simple yet effective means to determine the dielectric constant when the substrate’s relative permittivity is approximately known. The loss tangent was found to increase markedly higher than that indicated in the data-sheet at 30GHz frequency. Finally, each element perfectly work when designing complete array antenna. The Range and gap between the elements are perfect as the desired result is obtained.