Short Programs

Build a Small Phased Array Radar Sensor

Date: June 24-28, 2013 | Tuition: $3,800 | Continuing Education Units (CEUs): 2.8
*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  | 
About the Lecturers  |  Location  |  Updates

Course Summary

Are you interested in learning about phased array radar systems by building and testing your own?

MIT Professional Education is offering a unique course in the design, fabrication, and testing of a laptop-based digital phased array radar sensor capable of ground moving target imaging (GMTI). Lectures will be presented on the topics of applied electromagnetics, antennas, RF design, analog circuits, radar system modeling, and digital signal processing while at the same time you build your own phased array radar system and perform field experiments. Each student will receive a radar kit, designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory staff, and a course pack.

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

During the course you will bring your radar kit into the field and perform experiments including range time intensity (RTI) plots, digital beamforming, and GMTI imaging of an urban target scene.

Learning Objectives

The participants of this course will be able to:

1. Understand how radar systems work.
2. Understand antennas, aperture, 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 GMTI imagery in the field.
6. Apply mono pulse processing to GMTI imagery.

Who Should Attend

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 phenomenon. Students will learn how radar systems work by attending lectures, making their own 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 phased array radar systems work
• Defense industry or government organizations 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

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 the Microsoft Windows operating system installed.

Program Outline

Day One

Session 1--1.5 hours:  Introduction to the Course and Radar Basics (Lecture)

Break

Session 2--1 hour:  Radar Kit Technical Explanation (Lecture)

Lunch

Session 3--1 hour:  Antennas (Lecture)

Session 4--1 hour:  Antenna Arrays and Digital Beamforming (Lecture)

Break

Session 5--1 hour:  Modular RF Design (Lecture)

Session 6--0.5 hour:  Q & A (Discussion)

Day Two

Session 7--1 hour:  Pulse Compression (Lecture)

Break

Session 8--1 hour:  Radar Signal Processing (Lecture)

Lunch

Session 9--2 hours:  Phased Array Radar Kit Fabrication (Lab)

Break

Session 10--2 hours:  Phased Array Radar Kit Fabrication (Lab Continued)

Day Three

Session 11--1 hour:  Radar Kit System Performance Model (Lecture)

Break

Session 12--1 hour:  Ranging Experiment Example (Lecture)

Lunch

Session 13--2 hours:  Ranging Experiment (Lab)

Break

Session 14--2 hours:  Ranging Experiment (Lab Continued)

Day Four

Session 15--1 hour:  Ranging Experiment Results (Lecture and Discussion)

Break

Session 16--1 hour:  GMTI Experiment Example (Lecture)

Lunch

Session 17--2 hours:  GMTI Experiment (Lab)

Break

Session 18--2 hours:  GMTI Experiment (Lab Continued)

Day Five

Session 19--3 hours: GMTI Experiment (Lab Continued)

Lunch

Session 20--1 hour:  GMTI Experiment Results (Lecture and Discussion)

Course schedule

Class runs 9:30 am - 5:30 pm every day except Friday when it ends at 3:00 pm.

Registration is on Monday morning from 8:45 - 9:15 am.

Please note that laptops with MATLAB are required for this course.

ABOUT THE Lecturers

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.

Dr. Bradley Perry
Bradley T. 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 RF and Quantum Systems Technology 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 0for 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 IEEE Phased Array Systems and Technology Symposium.

Mr. Todd Levy
Todd J. Levy received his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2004. He was employed at L-3 Communications and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory prior to joining MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 2011, where he is currently an associate staff member of the Airborne Radar Systems and Techniques group. Throughout his career, Mr. Levy has worked on a wide spectrum of signal processing applications ranging from radio frequency direction finding to decoding intent from biological signals for use in controlling prosthetic limbs. His current research interests are in developing radar detection algorithms.

Dr. Patrick Bell
Patrick J. Bell is a Member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. He received his B.S. from the University of Virginia in 2001 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2003 and 2006, all in electrical engineering. Since joining Lincoln Laboratory in 2006, Dr. Bell has conducted research in microwave circuit design, including power amplifiers for MILSATCOM systems on moving platforms, agile frequency synthesizers, and active wideband phased arrays for airborne electronic warfare systems. He is currently a member of the RF and Quantum Systems Technology Group. Dr. Bell is a member of the IEEE and the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.

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.

Michael Watts
Michael Watts is Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He received his B.S.E.E. from Tufts (1996) and his S.M. (2001) and Ph.D. (2005) from MIT. From 1996 to 1999, he was a member of the technical staff at Draper Labs, and from 2005 to 2010 he was a member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories, where he led their silicon microphotonics effort. Michael’s research focuses on electromagnetics, photonics, and optical networks, with particular interest in microphotonic circuits for application in communication networks, high-frequency scenarios, and new sensor modalities. A key example of his work is an ultralow-power, high-bandwidth silicon microphotonic communications platform.

Location

This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Updates

Please note that laptops with MATLAB are required for this course.