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An effective method for incoherent scattering radar's detecting ability evaluation
Author(s) -
Lu Ziqing,
Yao Ming,
Deng Xiaohua
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1002/2015rs005827
Subject(s) - incoherent scatter , radar , ionosphere , remote sensing , computer science , autocorrelation , antenna (radio) , physics , optics , geology , mathematics , telecommunications , statistics , geophysics
Abstract Ionospheric incoherent scatter radar (ISR), which is used to detect ionospheric electrons and ions, generally, has megawatt class transmission power and hundred meter level antenna aperture. The crucial purpose of this detecting technology is to get ionospheric parameters by acquiring the autocorrelation function and power spectrum of the target ionospheric plasma echoes. Whereas the ISR's echoes are very weak because of the small radar cross section of its target, estimating detecting ability will be significantly instructive and meaningful for ISR system design. In this paper, we evaluate the detecting ability through signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). The soft‐target radar equation is deduced to be applicable to ISR, through which we use data from International Reference Ionosphere model to simulate signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) of echoes, and then comparing the measured SNR from European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association and Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar with the simulation. The simulation results show good consistency with the measured SNR. For ISR, the topic of this paper is the first comparison between the calculated SNR and radar measurements; the detecting ability can be improved through increasing SNR. The effective method for ISR's detecting ability evaluation provides basis for design of radar system.