Short Programs

Build a multi-channel search and track radar

Date: TBD | Tuition: TBD | Continuing Education Units (CEUs): TBD
*This course has limited enrollment. Apply early to guarantee your spot.
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Course Summary  |  Learning Objectives  |  Who Should Attend  |  Program Outline  |  Schedule  |  Participants' Comments  |  Lecturers  |  Location  |  Links & Resources  |  Updates

Course Summary

Are you interested in learning about using multi-channel phased array radar systems through hands-on construction and experiment?

MIT Professional Education is offering a unique course in the design, fabrication, and testing of a laptop-based phased array radar sensor capable of ground moving target imaging (GMTI) using analog and digital beamforming, along with applications of tracker principles on the acquired images.

Lectures will be presented on the topics of applied electromagnetics, antennas, RF design, analog circuits, phased array radar calibration, and digital signal processing, while at the same time you build your own radar channel and perform field experiments both individually and as a group. Each student will receive a single channel radar kit designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory staff and a course pack. The group experiments will utilize these kits to populate a shared phased array asset and explore beamforming and calibration.

This course will appeal to those who want to learn array-based radar systems engineering, analog and digital beamforming, or tracking; use radar technology in a product or experiment; or make components or sub-systems.

You do not have to be a radar engineer but it helps if you have at least a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or physics and are interested in any of the following: electronics, electromagnetics, signal processing, physics, or amateur radio. It is recommended that you have some familiarity with MATLAB. Each student is required to bring a laptop with MATLAB installed. Primary support for the provided software will be for MATLAB version 2009a or newer and the Microsoft Windows operating system. Instructors will make every effort to support other configurations.

During the course you will bring your radar kit into the field and perform range time intensity (RTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) experiments. There will then be group experiments using multiple radar units as receive channels for a digital phased array. These experiments will include topics of array calibration and analog and digital beamforming while collecting GMTI images of an urban target scene. Additionally, development of algorithms for tracking multiple targets in the RTI and GMTI images will be undertaken.

Each student will receive a single channel radar kit designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory staff and a course pack.

Learning Objectives

The participants of this course will be able to:

1. Understand how radar systems work.
2. Understand antennas, aperture, and analog and digital beamforming.
3. Understand pulse compression and basic radar signal processing.
4. Design and build a small phased array radar system.
5. Acquire and process ranging and GMTI imagery in the field.
6. Exploit detection and tracking processing on acquired images.

Who Should Attend

You do not have to be a radar engineer but it helps if you have at least a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or physics and are interested in any of the following: electronics, electromagnetics, signal processing, physics, or amateur radio. It is recommended that you have some familiarity with MATLAB.

This course is targeted for engineers and scientists who plan to design phased array radars or sensors; use phased array radar systems in a product or as the final product; work on phased array radar systems, components, or subsystems; or are interested in using phased array radar systems for observation of physical phenomena. Students will learn how radar systems work by attending lectures, building a phased array radar, and acquiring data in the field. Those who should attend include:

• Developers of radar systems or components
• Users of radar technology
• Purchasers of radar technology such as automotive and government organizations
• Commercial enterprises seeking to use or add radar technology to their product or develop a radar-based product
• Defense industry or government personnel who want to learn how radar and SAR imaging works
• Defense industry or government supervisors seeking to quickly educate employees
• Unmanned vehicle or robot developers seeking to use radar sensor packages
• Scientists who are interested in using radar technology for the observation of nature

Program Outline

Day One
Session 1 - 1.5 hours: Introduction to the Course and Radar Basics (Lecture)
Session 2 - 1 hour: RF Design (Lecture)
Session 3 - 1 hour: Antennas and Arrays (Lecture)
Session 4 - 1 hour: Analog and Digital Beamforming (Lecture)
Session 5 - 0.5 hours: Transmit / Receive (T/R) Modules (Lecture)
Session 6 - 0.5 hours: Radar Calibration (Lecture)
Session 7 - 0.5 hours: Q & A (Discussion)

Day Two
Session 8 - 1.5 hours: Pulse Compression (Lecture)
Session 9 - 1 hour: Radar Signal Processing (Lecture)
Session 10 - 1 hour: Radar Kit Technical Explanation (Lecture)
Session 11 - 2.5 hours: Radar Kit Fabrication (Lab)

Day Three
Session 12 - 0.5 hours: Radar Kit Debug and Tuning (Lab)
Session 13 - 1 hour: Radar Kit System Performance Model (Lecture)
Session 14 - 1 hour: Radar Trackers (Lecture)
Session 15 - 0.5 hours: Ranging Experiment Example (Lecture)
Session 16 - 0.5 hours: Radar Kit Debug and Tuning (Lab)
Session 18 - 2.5 hours: Ranging and Tracking Experiments (Lab)

Day Four
Session 19 - 0.5 hours: Radar Kit Debug and Tuning (Lab)
Session 20 - 1 hour: Ranging and Tracking Experiment Results (Lecture / Discussion)
Session 21 - 1 hour: GMTI Experiment Example (Lecture)
Session 22 - 1 hour: GMTI Experiment (Lab)
Session 23 - 2.5 hours: GMTI and Tracker Development (Lab)

Day Five
Session 24 - 3 hours: GMTI and Tracker Development (Lab Continued)
Session 25 - 2 hours: GMTI and Tracker Experiment Results (Lecture and Discussion)

Course schedule and registration times

View 2013 Course Schedule

Class runs 9:30 am - 5:30 pm each day except Friday, when it ends at 3:30 pm.

Please note that laptops with MATLAB are required for this course. Primary support for the provided software will be for MATLAB version 2009b or newer; Instrument Control Toolbox preferred. Supported operating systems are Microsoft Windows XP or 7 (Windows 8 is not yet supported), or Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

Optional software includes Atmel Studio 6.1 (Optional for firmware modification and development) and Atmel Flip (Optional for flashing firmware via USB).

Participants' Comments

Senior principal se, raytheon systems
"There are no other courses like this where you get both theory and hands-on experience building and testing a radar. This type of practical experience is very important in developing the next generation of radar design engineers."

technical staff, mit lincoln laboratory
"The course provided students with a rare opportunity to work with and understand a complete system. It was well organized, well executed, and the material was very accessible. We were able to begin experimenting with individual radar systems immediately. The link between the presented theory and the experiments was very clear. Given the complexity of a radar (even a basic one), this is quite impressive."

chief scientist, tidalscale
"An efficient introduction to practical aspects of microwave radar, with demonstrations and hands-on experimentation."

About The Lecturers

Dr. Bradley Perry
Dr. Bradley Perry received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University in 2001, 2002, and 2005, respectively. He has been a member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts since 2005. Dr. Perry is currently working in the areas of microwave circuit and antenna design with the Advanced RF Sensing and Exploitation group at the Laboratory. Recent work at the Laboratory has included compact receiver and transmitter designs for ground-based electronic warfare systems and active decoys, along with work on RF cancellation techniques for simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) applications.

Dr. Perry is a member of Commission B of URSI and the IEEE Antennas and Propagation and Microwave Theory and Techniques Societies. He served as the Chairman of the Boston section of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society from 2006 through 2008 and continued in the role of Past Chair through 2009. Dr. Perry has presented work at numerous IEEE AP-S and AMTA symposiums and published articles in a number of refereed journals. Dr. Perry is currently serving as the Student Programs Chair for the 2013 IEE Phased Array Systems and Technology Symposium.

Professor Gregory W. Wornell
Gregory W. Wornell received his B.A.Sc. (with honors) from the University of British Columbia and his S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in 1985, 1987, and 1991, respectively.

Since 1991 he has been on the faculty at MIT, where he is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. At MIT he leads the Signals, Information, and Algorithms Laboratory within the Research Laboratory of Electronics and co-directs the MIT Center for Wireless Networking. He is also chair of Graduate Area I (Systems, Communication, Control, and Signal Processing) within the EECS department's doctoral program and a member of the MIT Computational and Systems Biology Initiative. He has held visiting appointments at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1999 to 2000, at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, California, in 1999, and at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, from 1992 to 1993.

His research interests and publications span the areas of signal processing, digital communication, and information theory and include algorithms and architectures for wireless networks, multimedia applications, and imaging systems. He has been involved in the Signal Processing and Information Theory societies of the IEEE in a variety of capacities and maintains a number of close industrial relationships and activities. He has won a number of awards for both his research and teaching and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Dr. Gordon P. Wichern
Gordon P. Wichern received his B.S. and M.S. from Colorado State University and Ph.D. from Arizona State University, all in Electrical Engineering, in 2004, 2006, and 2010, respectively. He has been a member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory since 2010, where he works in the Airborne Radar Systems and Techniques Group. His current work at the laboratory encompasses various aspects of Radar Signal Processing, with a specific emphasis on Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) tracking. He is a member of the IEEE and the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and has several refereed publications related to signal processing and its applications.

Mr. David Conway
David Conway received his B.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1984 and his M.S.E.E. from the University of Southern California in 1986, both in Electrical Engineering. He has worked in the microwave and antenna discipline since 1984 working for Hughes, ITT, and M/A-Com. In 2010, he left industry to join MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he is on staff in the RF and Quantum Systems Group. Mr. Conway’s research interests include phased arrays, multifunction T/R Modules, and the application of low cost technologies to same.

Dr. Jeffrey Herd
Jeffrey S. Herd received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1982, 1983, and 1989, respectively. From 1983 to 1999, he was with the Antenna Technology Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts. From 1992 to 1994, he was a visiting scientist with the Antenna Group of the Institute for High Frequency Physics, German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) in Wessling, Germany.

In 1999, he joined the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he is currently an Associate Group Leader in the RF and Quantum Systems Technology Group. Dr. Herd’s research interests include ultra-wideband phased arrays, multifunction T/R modules, digital sub-array architectures, and wideband digital receivers.

Dr. Shakti Davis
Shakti K. Davis received her B.S. from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces in 1999 and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2002 and 2006, respectively, all in electrical engineering. In 2006 she joined the technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and is currently a member of the Airborne Radar Systems and Techniques group. Her research areas at the Laboratory include radar signal processing for moving target detection and classification with a focus on space-time adaptive processing (STAP) and feature-based processing methods.

Location

This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please contact the Short Programs office for further details.

links & Resources

Video/Audio:

• DIY Phased Array Radar Demo for MIT IAP 2012

News/Articles:

• The blind codemaker - New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission, even over fluctuating wireless links.

Other:

• PDF download - SMART – Future Urban Mobility

Updates

There are no updates at this time.