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Pulse-Doppler systems measure the range to objects by measuring the elapsed time between sending a pulse of radio energy and receiving a reflection of the object. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, so the distance to the object is the elapsed time multiplied by the speed of light, divided by two – there and back.
The Doppler effect (or Doppler shift), named after Austrian physicist Christian Doppler who proposed it in 1842, is the difference between the observed frequency and the emitted frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to the source of the waves. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren approaches, passes and recedes from ...
Doppler systems involve velocity measurements similar to the kind of measurements made using a strobe light. For example, a strobe light can be used as a tachometer to measure rotational velocity for rotating machinery. Strobe light measurements can be inaccurate because the light may be flashing 2 or 3 times faster than shaft rotation speed.
Range ambiguity resolution is a technique used with medium pulse-repetition frequency (PRF) radar to obtain range information for distances that exceed the distance between transmit pulses. This signal processing technique is required with pulse-Doppler radar .
As an example, a Doppler weather radar with a pulse rate of 2 kHz and transmit frequency of 1 GHz can reliably measure weather speed up to at most 150 m/s (340 mph), thus cannot reliably determine radial velocity of aircraft moving 1,000 m/s (2,200 mph).
The radar will report incorrect distance for reflections from distances beyond the instrumented range, such as from the moon. FMCW range measurements are only reliable to about 60% of the instrumented range, or about 300 km for 100 Hz FM.
Regardless, radars that employ the technique are universally coherent, with a very stable radio frequency, and the pulse packets may also be used to make measurements of the Doppler shift (a velocity-dependent modification of the apparent radio frequency), especially when the PRFs are in the hundreds-of-kilohertz range. Radars exploiting ...
Weather radar in Norman, Oklahoma with rainshaft Weather (WF44) radar dish University of Oklahoma OU-PRIME C-band, polarimetric, weather radar during construction. Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.).