High Dynamic Range Antenna and RF-Subsystem For FMCW Imaging Radar K.Solbach* and M.

Bck**
* Universitt Duisburg, FB9, Fachgebiet Hochfrequenztechnik, 47048 Duisburg, Tel. (0203)3793286, Fax (0203)3793498, email: hft@uni-duisburg.de ** European Aeronautical Defence and Space Company (EADS), VAE51, 89077 Ulm, Tel. (0731)3925659, Fax (0731)3925810, email: markus.boeck@vs.dasa.de

Introduction The presentation discusses the requirements on the characteristics of antenna and RFsubsystem of a FMCW Imaging Radar with respect to the dynamic range and presents the design of an advanced demonstrator. The discussion is based on experience with the HiVision-Radar system /1/ which observes the ground from an elevated position (e.g. airborne platform, see also /2/) and employs a frequency scanned antenna producing a narrow beam in azimuth with fan beam pattern in elevation. System Dynamic Range Starting from the dynamic range of the imaged scene, the present application requires a high range dynamics of short (near) to far-out distance coverage of about 30 m to 3000 m. For a single target situation with 40 dB/decade power law this yields 80 dB of echo signal dynamic range, but with distributed back scatter (clutter) the dynamic range is lower. However, the most demanding situation is created by a single near-in target of extremely high return in front of a low cross section, evenly distributed area return, Fig.1. From experience with the present system we assume the required dynamic range from such a situation to be about 80 dB. It is important to note that these signals of wide dynamic range exist in the RF domain up to the last stage of RF signal processing (the RF to video down converter) and that they exist at the same time, i.e. there is no sensitivity time control possible as is in pulsed radar systems. This means that the RF portion of the radar system needs to handle the full instantaneous signal dynamic range of 80 dB and only after the RF-to-video conversion we may apply highpass filtering (emphasis) in order to relieve the analog-to-digital converter dynamic range requirement (i.e. reduce the number of required resolution bits). Antenna Subsystem The RF portion of the radar system starts with the antenna subsystem. As is well known, the transmitter leakage into the receiver can produce saturation of the receiver and may lead to masking of small targets by the transmitters phase noise side bands. Depending on the required radar range, Tx and Rx ports need to be isolated by many tens of decibels, in our present case about 40 to 50 dB are sufficient. This requirement is satisfied by employing two separate antennas for transmit and receive, Fig.2(a). However, as an alternative, an adaptive circuit known as reflective power canceler, Fig.2(b), allows the operation of transmitter and receiver with a single antenna under such isolation requirements and using wide frequency sweep ranges /3/; by tayloring the control loop frequency response, it is even possible to implement a certain degree of sensitivity-range control, /4/. Further on, the broad antenna pattern in the elevation plane may be taylored in such a way as to illuminate the far-out areas at near zero elevation angles with the highest gain while the

near-in targets which appear under higher depression angles (negative elevation) are attenuated according to their range, Fig.3. While this seems to be equivalent to an inverted cosec2-pattern shape as used in air trafic control systems, the low elevation hight in practical radar applications together with the rather broad elevation beam width of space limited antennas may rather lead to the utilization of the steep roll-off characteristic of a pencil beam type elevation pattern. On the other hand, the narrow azimuthal pattern is responsible for the discrimination of targets in the azimuthal plane. Different to conventional pulse radar operation, all instantaneously received echo energy is summed up and displayed accordingly, and there are no discrete targets to plot which would allow filtering and cancelation of false target responses, due to e.g. sidelobe returns, by either data processing or by sidelobe blanking/ canceling techniques. Thus, it is important to have an azimuthal pattern of very low average sidelobes to suppress the collection of clutter signals from a wide angular range off the narrow main beam and to have very low first sidelobes to suppress repetitions of the image features in the azimuth plane, Fig.4. However, the required sidelobe suppression is connected to the useful dynamice range of the complete receiving chain including the A/D-converter and the actual echo signal range: With 80 dB of signal dynamic range assumed, the peak antenna sidelobe suppression should approch 40 dB for receive and transmit antennas and at least 50 dB for the average level from the main beam out to +/-90 azimuth (this assumes that the A/D-converter saturation level is reached for the peak RCS-target for any look angle). In the realized millimeterwave frequency scanned antenna system, /5/, a very low sidelobe aperture distribution was used for the design of the slot excitations and has successfully created the very low average sidelobes. However, due to an S-shaped phase error distribution along the array, the main beam is broadened, while the first sidelobes are integrated into shoulders, Fig.5(a). A technique for the correction of phase errors leads to sharpening of the main beam yet with only marginal first sidelobe suppression, Fig.5(b). RF Subsystem While the antenna performs echo signal filtering in angular space, the RF subsystem influences the imaging fidelity in range only: At any one time, the receiver processes the signals entering from the antenna as weighted by the antenna pattern. Nonlinearities in the receiving chain lead to the production of false target responses, Fig.6, namely by generation of harmonics of high level echo signals or by intermodulation of pairs of high level echo signals. Such false signals show up in the radar image as equidistant repetitions of the real target in range along a radial spoke( = harmonics) or as additional targets around two targets on one radial spoke ( = intermodulation). In a receiver, both of these processes produce signals within the video bandwidth, so that the false signals cannot be filtered out and must lead to false image information at some level. Based on the experience with the present demonstrator system, a direct-conversion receiver with a high-gain preamplifier (LNA) and a single ended low level mixer configuration is particularly susceptable to harmonic generation due to single high-RCS targets. These spurious signals can effectively cloud the image information of the respective radial spoke. Suppression of these artefacts requires extreme linearity of the mixer, i.e. high level mixers, see Table 1, which is difficult to realize at mm-wave frequencies due to the delicate semiconductor structures needed for efficient operation. In an effort to improve the dynamic range of the receiver, a heterodyne receiving chain was implemented in place of a direct conversion frontend. This concept not only improves the system noise figure due to image frequency suppression but also places filtering and amplification after the first mixer (instead of in front of the mixer) and, most important, the use of a high dynamic range converter (high level, double balanced FET-mixer) at the lower intermediate frequency (IF) of 4 to 5GHz. IFfiltering deletes all harmonics generated by the first mixer (at high RF) and affords much

lower generation of harmonics at the IF-to-video conversion stage (IF mixer) as compared to the mm-wave mixer in direct conversion; on the other hand, intermodulation products still are dominated by the large signal handling of the first mixer, but these products generally appear to be less prominent in real radar scenes. Last not least, the transmitter phase noise spectrum also is critical with respect to the dynamic range of the imaging radar. This referres not only to the well known limitation of the radar range due to noise masking of low level and far-off target signals by noise coupled from the transmitter, but also to the creation of masking signals due to the presence of strong near-in responses: E.g., in the case of a single target response, the echo signal is a true copy of the transmit signal and ideally should lead to a constant frequency waveform in the video frequency domain. However, due to the phase noise of the transmit waveform, the spectrum of the echo signal is distributed likewise above and below the centre frequency and the image appears blurred in range, i.e. the neighbouring range cells are filled with noise from the transmitter. Although the transmit phase noise spectral density sharply decays with frequency offset on the order of 30 to 20 dB/decade, the radial extent of target image widening can become extensive due to the increase of video amplification (high pass emphasis) on the order of 20 to 40 dB/decade, Fig.7. It is thus important to employ a low phase noise frequency source and also optimize the slope and set-on frequency of video emphasis. Conclusion Due to the inherent limitation of a FMCW radar in processing echo signals before the critical conversion to video frequency, it is necessary to adapt filtering characteristics of antennas and receiving circuitry as well as to employ high dynamic range frequency converters. As a result, imaging radar operation becomes possible under extreme RCS dynamic range with low spurious signal generation, i.e. good suppression of image artefacts.
References /1/ F.-J.Tospann, M.Pirkl, W.Grner,Multifunction 35 GHz FMCW radar with frequency scanning antenna for synthetic vision applications, Proc. SPIE Intern.Symp. on Aerospace/Defence Sensing & Control and Dual Use Photonics, Orlando, Fl., April 1995 /2/ P.Hecker, Enhanced Vision Systems: Millimeterwave Imaging Radar for Safe Aircraft Operations, GRS 2000, Session 11, Berlin, 12 October 2000 /3/ K.Solbach, Einrichtung zur Erhhung des Dynamikbereichs von frequenzmodulierten Dauerstrichradaren, Patent application DE19918767, 24.4.1999 /4/ B.-O.As,Implementation of FMCW techniques into practical radar systems, 8.Radarsymposium, DGON, Neubiberg, September 1993 /5/ M.Bck, K.Solbach, Frequency Scanning-Antenne mit subresonanten Schlitzstrahlern und PhasenfehlerKompensation, ITG-Fachtagung Antennen, Mnchen, April 1998

Low RCS Ground Clutter

Range 3 km

High RCS (Building, etc.)

Range 30 m

Fig.1

High dynamic range RCS scenario

Power Amplifier Tx Radiation

Antenna Coupling

Rx Low Noise Amplifier

Carrier plus Phase Noise

(a) Fig.2 Transmit-receive isolation through (a) separate antennas (b) adaptive reflective power canceler

(b)

Main Beam Target and Clutter

Integration over Sidelobe Responses Low RCS Clutter

Elevation Antenna Pattern

High RCS Single Target First Sidelobe

Ground

Average Sidelobe Level

Fig.3

Shaped elevation pattern of radar antenna

Fig.4

Collection of signals via radar antenna main beam and sidelobes

(a) Fig.5

(b)

Realized 36 GHz frequency scanning antenna patterns (near main lobe) (a) with phase distribution errors (b) with compensated phase errors

Amplitude

Amplitude

Single High RCS Target

Two Point Targets

RF

RF

Nonlinear RF / Video Conversion

Amplitude Amplitude RF Harmonics Intermodulation

RF

Fig.6

Production of radar image artefacts from high level targets due to nonlinear receiver
Lo Amplitude High Pass Emphasis Single Target Response

Phase Noise

Video Amplification

Noise Spoke

1
f0
f

f Video

fVideo

Fig.7

Production of radar image artefacts from high level targets due to transmitter phase noise

36 GHz (RF) Type LO level 1 dB Compression Intercept Point IP3 Second harmonic IP2 Single ended diode mixer 10 dBm 0 dBm 5 dBm 20 dBm

5 GHz (IF) Double balanced FET-mixer 16 dBm 16 dBm 30 dBm 36 dBm Double balanced diode mixer 23 dBm 16 dBm 25 dBm 43 dBm

Table 1 Typical large signal characteristics of frequency converters at RF and IF