Sunday, June 14, 2015

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A Look At The Impact The Monopulse Comparator Has Had On Radar Technology

By Elaine Guthrie


If you are interested in military or aviation technology, you see one piece of equipment mentioned time and time again. Radar (short for Radio Detection And Ranging) is a way of locating objects and telling important information such as the direction in which those objects are traveling, how far away they are from a given point and how fast the object is traveling. The monopulse comparator is an important component of modern radar systems and has done much to make these systems more reliable and accurate.

Although radar systems were initially used by the military to detect approaching aircraft and other potentially hostile objects these systems are being used in many other ways these days. Motorists are likely familiar with the guns used by police in order to detect speeding vehicles. The signal can bounce off of a vehicle and travel back to the gun in order to give the officer an idea of how quickly a particular car is traveling.

Weather forecasting also uses this type of system. It can track storm fronts, give information on where a storm is or how severe it is, and allows meteorologists to let us know important weather data. It can be used for tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards and thunderstorms as well. Many weather broadcasts will display the results of Doppler radar as part of the broadcast so viewers can see the data for themselves.

When you are out at sea it can be difficult to determine your location when visibility is poor. Using a radar system will allow a ship to bounce signals off of known reference points. Marine buoys and the shoreline can both be used as reference points for a ship. The same system is also used to scan around the vessel to detect the presence of other vessels. This can help avoid collisions between two or more ships.

A radar system is made up of a transmitter, waveguide, duplexer, receiver and a display processor. The transmitter generates the radio frequency which will be used to detect objects. There is a waveguide that is used to connect the transmitter with an antenna that will send the radio frequency out into the environment. A duplexer is then used to switch the antenna from transmitting to receiving and the resulting signal is captured by the receiver and displayed on the display processor.

Jamming used to be a significant issue with early systems. While most people think of jamming as an enemy action, this is not always the case. Jamming simply refers to interference from radio waves of the same frequency as a particular radar system. It can obscure objects or give an inaccurate idea of how fast they are traveling or the direction in which they are moving.

Splitting a beam of radio frequency into several portions really improves accuracy. This is because the different sections of the beam can be compared to find out if the result are accurate. A monopulse system can compare up to four different sections of frequency and the operator will get an excellent idea of what is out there and how it is moving.

If you are interested in taking a closer look at these items you will quickly learn that there are different types. Looking online will give you the most comprehensive information on the different variants available although you may find you will need to check out specialized websites in order to view them.




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