Ultrafast Detection and Acquisition Radar for Ballistics Defense

This project entails the design and demonstration of a X-band retrodirective noise-correlating (RNC) radar designed specifically for bullet detection and shooter geolocation. Preliminary research carried out for the DoD (U.S. Army Research Office and DARPA) of such a system has already demonstrated that ultrafast detection and tracking of a bullet is possible owing to the unique modality that the RNC radar offers. The present Phase-I research will design and optimize such a system in X band and test it on small fast moving targets. Computer simulations (ADS) will be carried out in parallel to determine how far out in range the radar will acquire bullets as a function of its electronic gain and aperture (i.e., number of channels). To leverage the previous DoD research, an existing X-band breadboard will be adapted and implemented for the proposed experiments.