Short Programs

Build a Small Radar System [PI.80s]

Date: June 25-29, 2012 | Tuition: $3,400 | 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  |  Participants' Comments  |  About the Lecturers  |  Location  |  Links & Resources  |  Updates

Course Summary

Are you interested in learning about radar by building and testing your own imaging radar system?

MIT Professional Education is offering a course in the design, fabrication, and test of a laptop-based radar sensor capable of measuring Doppler and range and forming synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. Lectures will be presented on the topics of applied electromagnetics, antennas, RF design, analog circuits, and digital signal processing while at the same time you build your own 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 how to develop radar systems or SAR imaging, use radar technology, or make components or sub-systems.

During the course you will bring your radar kit into the field and perform experiments such as measuring the speed of passing cars or plotting the range of moving targets. A SAR imaging competition will test your ability to form a SAR image of a target scene of your choice from around campus.

Learning Objectives

The participants of this course will be able to:

1. Understand how radar systems work.
2. Understand antennas and aperture.
3. Understand pulse compression and SAR imaging.
4. Design and build a small radar system.
5. Acquire and process doppler vs. time radar plots in the field.
6. Acquire and process range vs. time radar plots in the field.
7. Form SAR imagery of urban terrain.

Who Should Attend

This course is targeted for engineers and scientists who plan to design radars; use radar systems in a product or as the final product; work on radar systems, components, or subsystems; or are interested in using radar systems for observation of physical phenomena. Students will learn how radar systems work by attending lectures, making their own radar set, and acquiring radar 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

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 a stereo audio input) with MATLAB because this will be used for data acquisition and signal processing.

Program Outline

Day One

Session 1--1 hour:  Radar Basics (Lecture)

Session 2--1 hour:  Modular RF Design (Lecture)

Lunch

Session 3--1.5 hours:  Antennas (Lecture)

Break

Session 4--1.5 hours:  Radar Kit Technical Explanation (Lecture)

Break

Session 5--1 hour:  Q & A (Discussion)

Day Two

Session 6--3 hours:  Radar Kit Fabrication Instructions (Lecture and Lab)

Lunch

Session 7--1 hour:  Doppler Experiment Example (Lecture)

Break

Session 8--3 hours:  Doppler Experiment (Lab)

Day Three

Session 9--3 hours:  Pulse Compression and add-to kit (Lecture and Lab)

Lunch

Session 10--1 hour:  Ranging Experiment Example (Lecture)

Break

Session 11--3 hours:  Ranging Experiment (Lab)

Day Four

Session 12--1.5 hours:  SAR Imaging (Lecture)

Session 13--0.5 hour:  SAR Imaging add-to kit (Lecture)

Lunch

Session 14--1 hour:  SAR Imaging Experiment Example (Lecture)

Break

Session 15--3 hours:  SAR Imaging Experiment (Lab)

Day Five

Session 16--3 hours:  SAR Imaging Experiment continued (Lab)

Lunch

Session 17--1 hour:  SAR Imaging Results & Competition (Lecture and Discussion)

Course schedule, registration times, Special Events

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

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

Please note that laptops with a stereo audio input and MATLAB are required for this course.

Participants' Comments

ABOUT THE Lecturers

Michael Watts
Michael Watts is Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He received his BSEE from Tufts (1996) and his SM (2001) and PhD (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.

Dr. Alan J. Fenn
Alan J. Fenn is a Senior Staff Member in the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems and Technology Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He has conducted extensive research in the area of adaptive phased array antennas and electromagnetic systems for radar and communications. He joined Lincoln Laboratory in 1981, and from 1982 to 1991 was a member of the Space Radar Technology Group, where his primary research was in adaptive phased-array antenna design and testing. From 1992 to 1999, he was Assistant Group Leader in the RF Technology Group, managing programs involving measurements of atmospheric effects on satellite communications. From 1978 to 1981, he was a Senior Engineer in the Antenna Systems Design/Analysis Group in the RF Systems Department at Martin Marietta Aerospace, Denver, Colorado.

Dr. Fenn was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2000 for his contributions to the theory and practice of adaptive phased-array antennas. He was Technical Program Co-Chair of the 2001 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Symposium. He has served as an associate editor in the area of adaptive antennas for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. He served as Technical Program Chair for the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology.

In 1990, Dr. Fenn was a co-recipient of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society’s H.A. Wheeler Applications Prize Paper Award. He also received the IEEE/URSI-sponsored 1994 International Symposium on Antennas (JINA 94) award. He is an author of numerous articles and patents, and is the author of three books on antennas and electromagnetic systems. Recently, he developed an MIT OpenCourseWare online lecture series entitled “Adaptive Antennas and Phased Arrays.” He has a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois–Chicago and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from The Ohio State University, all in electrical engineering.

For more information on Dr. Fenn, please visit: http://www.ll.mit.edu/workshops/education/videocourses/antennas/bio.html.

Dr. Bradley Perry
Dr. Bradley Perry received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees 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.

Location

This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We can also offer this course for groups of employees at your location. Please contact the Short Programs office for further details.

Links & Resources

Suggested Reading:

• Generally page through this book and read specifically Chapters 1, 4-6, 9, 14, 31
  G. W. Stimson, Introduction to Airborne Radar, 2nd ed. SciTech, 1998.
• Chapters 1-2 in M. L. Skolnik, Introduction to Radar Systems, 3rd ed. McGraw Hill, 2001.

Updates

Please note that laptops with a stereo audio input and MATLAB are required for this course.