Product Description
The First Comprehensive Guide to the Principles, Design Methods, and Applications of Space Based Radar. Turn to Space Based Radar for authoritative information on the latest developments in Space Based Radar (SBR), covering fundamental principles, cutting-edge design methods, and several new applications. This SBR guide focuses on clutter and target data generation from an SBR platform, and on Space Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) to enhance the target detecti… More >>
Tags: Based, clutter, cutting edge design, first comprehensive guide, fundamental principles, Radar, sbr guide, Space, space time adaptive processing, target data
Perhaps you can think of this book as a nice extension of classical orbital mechanics. Unsurprisingly, there is a heavy mathematical bent throughout the book. The usage of space based radar requires a recap of Keplerian laws and orbital motion of satellites.
The motion of a satellite also means that its scanning footprint of the Earth’s surface has nontrivial geometries. Plus, the velocity itself induces Doppler effects, the so-called crab angle and crab magnitude. Another correction explained is due to the non-sphericity of the Earth, which necessitates a grazing angle correction factor.
Another subject taking up extensive discussion is the data collection and processing. There might be a spatial array of sensors scattered across space, for example. The use of multiple sensors has considerable advantages over a single sensor, in terms of resolution and redundancy. Weighed against the extra cost, of course.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is not a book for the “casual” technical reader or an introduction to the subject for a neophyte whose boss has just ordered him to get up to speed on space-based radar. It is a state-of-the art text for working engineers who need to do very detailed space-based radar performance calculations, especially calculations that involve coping with radar clutter. For those audiences, it is a meticulously thorough analysis of the problems associated with detecting targets in clutter and the processing techniques required to remove that clutter. The indepth discussions of these topics are clear, complete, and elegant. Fully appreciating them will take some commitment on the reader’s part, but for those who need understanding in that depth, this is the book to get. In fact, the book is arguably mistitled. A more appropriate title might be something along the lines of “Advanced Signal Processing for Space-bAsed Radar.” Even that might be a little too broad. The main focus is on one set of techniques: Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP). While STAP is indeed an important topic and is very much the rage, there are other techniques that are worth exploring.
The reader searching for a broader, more comprehensive treatment of space-based radar will probably have to search elsewhere. To be sure, the book includes the obligatory discussion of orbital mechanics. In fact, it present the material very well. However, there is almost nothing in the book about hardware design, for example, or the broader systems trades involved in choosing one configuration over another. For many potential readers those topices may be of more interest than some of the material presented. Thus, the comprehensive book on space-based radar has yet to be written.
Rating: 4 / 5