Development of a MIMO VHF Radar for the Search of the Oldest Ice in Antarctica

A chirped-pulse radar ice sounder, operating at VHF band, was developed in 2019 for the search of the "oldest ice" in East Antarctica. This ground-penetrating radar system has a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) configuration with a total of eight channels. Each transmitter generates a 170-2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE geoscience and remote sensing letters Vol. 19; pp. 1 - 5
Main Authors Li, L., Wattal, S., Nunn, J., Paden, J., Yan, J.-B.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Piscataway IEEE 2022
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Antarctica
Antenna arrays
Antenna design
Antennas
Chirp signals
Design
Duplex operation
Gain
Ground penetrating radar
Hardware
Ice
ice sounding
MIMO communication
Pulse radar
Radar
Radar antennas
Radar equipment
Transmitting antennas
very high frequency (VHF)
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Summary:A chirped-pulse radar ice sounder, operating at VHF band, was developed in 2019 for the search of the "oldest ice" in East Antarctica. This ground-penetrating radar system has a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) configuration with a total of eight channels. Each transmitter generates a 170-230-MHz chirp signal with a peak power of 1 kW. To support the half-duplex operation with such high power, a customized T/R switch is designed and developed. To increase the power-aperture product, the radar is equipped with an eight-element linear antenna array, which has a length of 8 m. In this letter, the radar hardware architecture, high-power T/R switch design, antenna array design, and sample field measurement results from Dome C Antarctica are presented.
ISSN:1545-598X
1558-0571
DOI:10.1109/LGRS.2022.3176287