Introduction to Airborne Radar, 2nd ed.

Citation

Rigelsford, J. (2002), "Introduction to Airborne Radar, 2nd ed.", Sensor Review, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 265-266. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2002.22.3.265.3

The second edition of Introduction to Airborne Radar is a comprehensive reference text which provides the latest developments in this subject. The book clearly conveys all the important aspects of radar and contains colourful illustrations with concise captions, photographs and real‐world examples, “sidenotes”, and “Blue Panels” that present more advanced details a reader can initially ignore.

The book comprises ten parts containing over 40 chapters. Part I presents an “Overview of airborne radar”, while Part II provides “Essential groundwork” and includes the key to a non‐mathematical understanding of radar. Part III, “Radar fundamentals”, contains eight chapters that discuss topics including the “Choice of radio frequency”, “Directivity and the antenna beam”, “Pulsed operation” and “Detection range”. The “Doppler effect”, “Spectrum of pulsed signals”, “Sensing doppler frequencies” and “How digital filters work” are among the seven chapters discussed in Part IV, “Pulse doppler radar”. The 21 chapters presented in these first four parts are also applicable to ground and sea radar.

The next four parts contain 15 chapters that address air‐to‐air and air‐to‐ground operation. Part V, “Return from the ground”, discusses topics including the “Effect of range and doppler ambiguities on ground clutter” and “Separating ground‐moving targets from clutter”. “Air‐to‐air operation” is discussed in Part VI, while Part VII addresses “High‐resolution ground mapping and imaging”. Chapters presented include “The crucial choice of pulse repetition frequency (PRF)”, “Principles of synthetic array (aperture) radar” and “SAR design considerations”. “Radar in electronic warfare” is discussed in Part VIII.

Part IX presents “Advanced concepts” and addresses “Electronically‐steered array sntennas (ESAs)”, “Advanced radar techniques” and “Advanced processor architecture”.

The final part of the book discusses “Representative radar systems”. These include “Reconnaissance and surveillance”, “Fighter and attack”, “Transport/tanker navigation” and “Civil applications”. Civil Applications presented include the RDR‐4B civil weather radar system and HISAR, a system which can be used to monitor flood damage, oil spills, sea ice and border crossings.

Overall, this is a superbly written reference text which is suitable for non‐specialists, engineers, technicians and those involved with radar and aerospace industries.