13: FM cw Radar

9. FM cw Radar

9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
9.6

Principles"
Radar equation"
Equivalence to pulse compression"
Moving targets"
Practical considerations"
Digital generation of wideband chirp signals "

FM cw Radar
FM cw Radar is a low cost technique, often used in shorter
range applications"
Applications include, altimetry for aircraft landing, speed
guns, laboratory test instruments, education, runway debris
monitoring, avalanche detection, volcano eruption onset
and many more"
The technology is simple to fabricate but requires care to
obtain high accuracy"
The technique has the same conceptual basis as pulse
compression and high resolution"

FM cw Radar
(FMCW) is a radar system where a frequency modulated signal is mixed
with an echo from a target to produce a beat signal."
The time delay is a measure of the range."
Digital Signal Processing is used for most detection processing. The beat
signals are passed through an Analog to Digital converter and then digital
processing is performed."
FM-CW radars can be built with one antenna using either a circulator, or
circular polarization. "
Most modern systems use one transmitter antenna and multiple receiver
antennas. "
Because the transmitter is on continuously at effectively the same frequency
as the receiver, special care must be exercised to avoid overloading the
receiver stages"

The FM cw radar - principle

frequency"
two - way propagation delay =

transmitted"
signal"

2r
c

echo"

t
time"
frequency difference =

2r f
2f
.
=
.r
c t
ct

See: Stove, A.G., Linear FMCW radar techniques, IEE Proc, Pt.F, Vol.139, No.5, pp343-350, October 1992."

The FM cw radar - principle

(a)

transmitted
chirp

t
=

2r
c

target
echo
(b)

t
beat
frequency

f2 =

f1 =

f
t

.(t - ) = f - f1

. =

f 2r
.
t c
t

t -

(c)
P(f)

1
t -

1
t

f2

f1
spacing of spectral
1
lines =
t

beat
frequency

The FM cw radar- resolution

The range and range resolution are given, as before, by"

c
R=
2

and

r =

Substituting for t we have "

c t
2

ct f
2f

However, frequency resolution is determined by the time interval used, therefore"

r =

ct
c
=
f t 2f

I.e. just as we had for pulse compression of a linear FM waveform but with the
importance difference that we now only have to sample at the beat frequency
and not the full bandwidth."

A schematic design for an FMCW radar

chirp
generator

circulator

frequency

time

spectrum
analyser

Frequency differences are obtained via a mixer and displayed on a

spectrum analyzer.
A circulator provides isolation between the transmitted and received
signals.
An alternative would be the use of two antennas.

The simplicity of this technique has meant that it

has been used from the earliest days of radar
ionosphere

transmitter
(Bournemouth)
2r d
t =
c

receiver
(Oxford)

h =

c 2t 2 + 2ctd
2

Appleton, E.V. and Barnett, M.A.F., On some direct evidence for downward atmospheric reflection of electric rays, Proc. Roy.
Soc., Vol.109, pp261-641, December 1925. (experiments at end of 1924)

The FM cw Radar equation

The standard form of the radar equation is:"
"
2 2
"
PG

Pr
t
=
"
3 4
P
4

r kT0 BF
(
)
n
"
"
"
The bandwidth of the spectrum analysis processing will be
matched to the sweep duration."
"
"
The appropriate value of B is therefore the reciprocal of the sweep
duration 1/T rather than the sweep bandwidth f. This gives a
processing gain equal to the time-bandwidth product of the
waveform, just as with conventional pulse compression.!

Equivalence of FM radar and pulse

compression
power

frequency

Pulse compression!
The chirp is matched
filtered in the receiver using
the complex conjugate of
the transmitted signal to
yie ld the point t ar get
response"

time

time

H(f)
transmitter
power

H *(f)
receiver
time

power

FMCW processing!

frequency

time

FM radar yields the same

response but in the
frequency domain"

time

H(f)
transmitter
power

receiver
frequency

frequency

time

Interrupted FM cw Radar (Fmicw)

frequency

transmit chirp
generator
tx
LO
time

LO chirp
generator
trigger
spectrum
analyser
tracker
processor

Allows operation at longer ranges."

A separate local oscillator with the same sweep rate is triggered at the
right moment."
The sweep and repetition rate are arranged so the the transmission and
reception are interleaved thus improving isolation."

Moving targets
We know that echoes from a target with radial velocity v will have a Doppler
shift"

fD

2vf 0
=
c

The frequency of the echo sweep will therefore be offset, leading to a delay
error"

t = f D

T
B

which is a range error "

r =

Tf 0v
ct
=
2
B

"
This can be corrected using a triangular (rather than saw-tooth) frequency
sweep. In fact it can be exploited so that both Doppler and range information
can be extracted.!

Moving targets
frequency

2r
=
c

fD =

2vf 0
Doppler-shifted
c
echo

transmitted
chirp

time
beat
frequency

f1 = f D +

B
T

f2 = f D

B
T
time

f1 + f 2
= fD
2

f1 f 2
B
2 Br
=
=
2
T
cT

Doppler information can be extracted, unambiguously by taking the

difference and sum of the two beat frequencies.

Digital generation of wideband chirp

waveforms
(a)

(b)

Griffiths, H.D. and Bradford, W.J., Digital generation of high time-bandwidth product linear FM waveforms for radar altimeters;
IEE Proc., Vol.139, Pt.F, No.2, pp160-169, April 1992.

Digital generation of wideband chirp

waveforms

carrier

fc

frequency
accumulator

/2

fm

DAC

DAC

SIN
ROM

COS
ROM

phase
accumulator

clock

start frequency

fm

start phase

fc fm

frequency
multiplication

output

Linear FM Waveform and

Point Target Response

The chirp bandwidth is 220 MHz, the chirp time length is 40 micro-seconds
and the sweep repetition interval is 440 micro-seconds

Amplitude and Phase Errors

phase

chirp bandwidth, f
periodicity of phase
error term

peak-to-peak
phase error

frequency

Griffiths, H.D., Phase and amplitude errors in FM radars; Colloque International sur le Radar, Paris, pp103-106; Socit des
Electriciens et des Electroniciens, 24-28 April 1989.

Phase and Amplitude Errors

Phase and amplitude errors will degrade radar performance.

They generate paired echoes which manifest as side-lobes.
Phase errors give rise to frequency modulation and amplitude errors to
amplitude modulation.
The phase error may be expressed as a Fourier series and the effect of
each term analyzed separately. Each term produces pairs of echoes.
Large errors can be tolerated if they vary only slowly with frequency.
Correction is possible but the errors can only be suppressed not removed.

Sweep nonlinearities

20
30
40
50
60
0.1 0.2

0.6 1.0

10

20

40

PHASE DEVIATION, b , 1
IN DEGREES

10

LEVEL OF FIRST ECHO BELOW

MAIN SIGNAL IN DECIBELS

The effect of amplitude and phase

errors in a conventional pulse
compression radar was evaluated by
Klauder et al. in 1960, analyzing the
distortion by means of a Fourier series
and showing that each term resulted
in paired echo range side-lobes."
"
This allows the maximum permissible
phase or amplitude error to be
evaluated for a given range side-lobe
level."
"
The situation with an FM radar is
different, though, and depends on
target range - intuitively one can see
that at zero range sweep
nonlinearities will completely cancel."

LEVEL OF FIRST ECHO BELOW

MAIN SIGNAL IN DECIBELS

10

20
30
40
50
60
0.01 0.02

0.06 0.1

AMPLITUDE DEVIATION,

0.2

0.6 1.0

a
(1+a1) , IN DECIBELS
o

dc response

If an undistorted linear FM pulse is mixed with a delayed

version of itself the beat frequency is a pure sinusoid."
If this is phase detected against a coherent sinusoid of the
same frequency a constant DC level will result."
If there is any phase distortion present it wont be a pure
sinusoid and the output of the phase detector is proportional to
the distortion."
This can be displayed on an oscilloscope and corrected in real
time."

Measurement of chirp phase errors

(a)
spectrum
analyser

delay,

chirp
input

power
splitter

beat fr equency

f
=



t

(b)

voltagecontrolled
oscillator

delay,

beat
frequency
signal
oscilloscope
phase
detector
voltage
ramp
generator

trigger

frequency
divider

reference
oscillator

Synthetic Aperture Processing

with FM Radar
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is able to produce imagery
with "
high resolution in two dimensions."
Imagery in this form has many applications"
The FM technique lends itself well to use in this way via
extraction of both range and Doppler information."
The radar is moved to synthesize a large aperture."
The beat frequency is digitized and Fourier transformed to
provide range information as a series of range bins."
For each range bin Fourier transformation over a sequence of
sweep cycles yields a Doppler signature for a particular
Azimuth target position. I.e. the cross-range information."

Synthetic Aperture Processing

with FM Radar
x

radar
r

target

P
r

r0

1/ 2

r(x) = (r0 + r) + x

1/ 2

= (r0 + r) 1 +

(r0 + r)

1
x
+ ....
= (r0 + r) 1 + 2
2
(r0 + r)

x
- (r0 + r) +
2r0

f or r << r0

f or x << (r0 + r)

Synthetic aperture processing

with FM radar
It should not be surprising that synthetic
aperture processing also works with FM
radars
The frequency of the beat signal is
proportional to target range, but the
sequence is modulated by a quadratic
variation of phase (= linear
variation of Doppler frequency)
The processing is therefore carried out in
two stages: firstly an FFT to extract the
range information for each echo, then
aperture synthesis on the sequence of
echoes
The example opposite shows the sequence
of echoes from a point target for unfocused
synthetic aperture

m=-N

m = -1 m = 0 m = 1

m=N

fD
+ r0
2
- r0
2

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

frequency
94 GHz VCO
3 GHz bandwidth

Radar Design
6 dB coupler

time
10 dBm

DIGITAL

4 dBm
non-linearity
compensation

mixer
8 dB conversion loss

voltage

transmitting
antenna
receiving
antenna

2 MHz, 1st order

stop

time
sawtooth
generator

20 kHz, 3rd order

start
low noise amplifier, gain 60 dB
transistor stage + op-amp

position
sensors

400 kHz, 3rd order

anti-aliasing
ANALOGUE

sync
10 MHz CLK

A/D
board

1 MHz sample rate,

12 bit resolution

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

* W-band (94 GHz)"

"
* FMCW, 3.5 GHz "
bandwidth"
"
* rail-mounted SAR"
"
* 1cm x 5cm resolution"

Radar parameters

Centre frequency
Radar wavelength
Sweep bandwidth
Sweep duration
Pulse Repetition
Frequency
Transmit power
Antenna size
Antenna beamwidth
Antenna gain
Resolution
SNR at 3 m range

94 GHz
3.2 mm
3 GHz
1.6 or 0.4 ms
625 or 2500 Hz
10 mW
7 mm 5 mm
32 E- & H-plane
15 dBi
R: 5 cm, x:1 cm
22.5 dB
1cmcmccm

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

A mm-wave FMCW SAR example

SAR image of
internal waves set
up in Coriolis
wave tank at
LEGI, Grenoble

Tarsier
Tarsier is a mm-wave FMCW radar designed and built by QinetiQ Malvern
for the detection of debris on airport runways.

Beasley, P.D.L., Tarsier, a millimetre wave radar for airport runway debris detection, Proc.
EuRAD Conference, 2004.

Tarsier

Centre frequency
Sweep bandwidth
Sweep duration
Pulse Repetition
Frequency
Transmit power
Antenna size
Antenna beamwidth
Antenna gain
Resolution
SNR at 3 m range

94 GHz
3.2 mm
3 GHz
1.6 or 0.4 ms
625 or 2500 Hz
10 mW
7 mm 5 mm
32 E- & H-plane
15 dBi
R: 5 cm, x:1 cm
22.5 dB
1cmcmccm

Further reading
Griffiths, H.D., Khosrowbeygi, A. and Bradford, W.J., Method of measuring the phase errors introduced
by frequency multiplier stages; Electronics Letters, Vol.25, No.1, pp5960, January 1989."
"
Griffiths, H.D., Phase and amplitude errors in FM radars; Colloque International sur le Radar, Paris, "
pp103106; Socit des Electriciens et des Electroniciens, 2428 April 1989."
"
Griffiths, H.D., New ideas in FM radar; Electronics and Communication Engineering Journal, Vol.2, No.
5, pp185194, October 1990."
"
Beasley, P.D.L., Stove, A.G., Reits, B.J. and s, B-O., Solving the problem of a single-antenna
frequency-modulated CW radar, Proc. RADAR'90 Conference, Washington; IEEE Publ., pp391
395, ** May 1990."
"
Griffiths, H.D. and Bradford, W.J., Digital generation of high time-bandwidth product linear FM
waveforms for radar altimeters; IEE Proc., Vol.139, Pt.F, No.2, pp160169, April 1992."
"
Stove, A.G., Linear FMCW radar techniques, IEE Proc, Pt.F., Vol.139, No.5, pp343-350, October 1992."
"
Beasley, P.D.L., Tarsier, a millimetre wave radar for airport runway debris detection, Proc. EuRAD
Conference, 2004. "