New radar applications with advanced multichannel radar AMBER

AMBER is the latest radar system that is being fully developed and designed within TNO. It is a multichannel radar with digital beamforming capabilities which allow for a large variety of applications. For example, depending on the selected mode, AMBER can act as higher resolution imaging radar, provide a continuous stream of image strips or detect moving targets.

Radar images are created using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) principles. The SAR techniques take advantage of the radar motion to synthetically increase the antenna aperture in the direction of motion. The increase in aperture directly translates into an improvement of the resolution providing resolutions that can be in the order of 15 cm, under the right circumstances.

In situations such as search-and-rescue or recognizance, a high resolution imaging radar providing real-time images gives an extraordinary operational advantage since quick decisions are critical. However, the processes of generating high resolution are time costly due to the large number of operations and data processing that are needed to be performed.

Assignment

There are several topics related to new applications for AMBER.

New processing techniques: Some of the new applications will be inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) or space-time adaptive processing (STAP). ISAR is a technique that is used to generate images of targets, usually ships, by making use of the target motion. STAP involves the optimal processing and data combination in space and time to aid detecting a target. The student will be in charge of implementing the algorithm and testing it with real data that was acquired by TNO with AMBER. ISAR will be used for imaging ships and the use of STAP will focus on detecting targets for search-and-rescue missions.

Data fusion for accurate positioning: In this part, the student will investigate how to optimally merge navigation and radar data to provide the position accuracy required by an imaging radar in real time. The student will become familiar for example with predictions algorithms, Kalman filters, but also with techniques that are used to estimate platform attitude (yaw and pitch) from radar data.

Real-time architectures: The student will investigate real-time processing architectures and implementations for imaging radars. Possible techniques to be implemented and optimized are data preprocessing (e.g. filtering), data reduction and subsystem communication (GMTI-SAR-navigation) among others.

Requirements

For this project, we are looking for a master student in either electrical engineering, applied physics, mathematics, computational science or any related study. Furthermore we are looking for a student who has a background in signal processing, basic statistical techniques, data analysis, radar, and programming skills in Matlab and/or C/C++. Strong communication (written and verbal) skills in English is a must. Expected project duration is about 9 to 12 months.

Contact

Last modified: 2022-10-04