Target Tracking with a Distributed Sensor System by Office of Naval Research (ONR)

The key innovation of this proposal is the use of Time Modulated Ultra-wideband (TM-UWB) Radar as a weather radar. Within the last few years low cost ultra-high precision delays have become available, and these now make it possible to build TM-UWB radarsystems and communication systems which have no carrier frequency. The only signals transmitted are single pulses. Impulses in the time domain generate very wide bandwidth signals in the frequency domain, and the signals generated by our current hardwarehave bandwidths in the gigahertz range. These pulses are generated in a pseudo-random sequence, making them robust to narrow band noise, and difficult to jam. As a weather radar to be carried in an unmanned air vehicle, the key benefits are low power,low cost, small size, and good radar resolution. The resulting ultra wideband transmission contain short wavelength energy which reflects off small droplets, but also contains long wavelength components which are able to penetrate clouds to measure clouddepth and clouds behind clouds. Another advantage is that with conventional radar, reflections from the many water droplets cause interference patterns that complicate cloud measurement. This does not happen with TM-UWB radar. Phased array and SARtechniques are also easy to implement for added power and directional resolution.Our partner company, Time Domain Corporation (TDC), is the patent holder on much of the technology for TM-UWB Radar. They have $30 million in private funds and have alreadybegun marketing several products. IAI will work with TDC to commercialize the technology for weather radar, and in several other niche areas.