A special class of noise radar that conforms to a frequency modulated (FM) structure has experienced a surge in practical applications in recent years. This article provides a historical context for these random FM waveforms, examines their useful attributes and associated trade-offs, and discusses some of these recent applications.

Classical radars use deterministic waveforms, such as linear frequency modulated pulses. Noise radars, on the other hand, use random waveforms, or waveforms that resemble random signals. The randomness of the signal provides certain advantages, such as limiting or avoiding range/velocity measurement ambiguity, or better resistance to jamming. This, however, comes at a price of more complicated system

With an increasing demand for high-resolution radar and wideband communication systems, the frequency spectrum is becoming a limited resource. Many such systems must coexist in a given frequency band. In order to minimize interference among these systems, a radar waveform design is used. Without a priori knowledge of the transmission channel and communication waveform, one viable strategy is to use

We present recent results of a new form of microwave and millimeter-wave imaging called active incoherent millimeter-wave (AIM) imaging that combines noise radar and sparse interferometric imaging techniques. Illumination of the scene with spatially and temporally incoherent noise enables the use of a sparse receiving array to capture information in the spatial frequency domain and reconstruct the

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The articles in this special section examine noise radar, a name for radars that use essentially random signals either as the transmitted signal or as the modulation.

This article describes the principles of noise radar, emphasizing the importance of its electronic counter–counter measure (electronic protection) and electromagnetic compatibility performance and reviews some noise radar demonstrators trialed by NATO Research Task Groups. We now understand how to build noise radars with performance comparable with, e.g., a low-power marine navigation radar. Furthermore

Prospective authors are requested to submit new, unpublished manuscripts for inclusion in the upcoming event described in this call for papers.

In this article, we propose a method to detect the solid-state marine radars that use noise waveforms. The proposed technique makes use of the change in kurtosis between the received noise radar waveform and the receiver's internal noise. Original data from a prototype marine noise radar is used to test the proposed method as well as simulations. The preliminary results show that the proposed method

It is well known that noise-like waveforms have the inherent property of suppressing ambiguities due to their nonrepetitive nature, as opposed to the more classical linear frequency modulated (LFM) pulsed waveforms. This aperiodicity also improves the robustness against jammers, making these waveforms harder to detect and classify by an enemy. However, noise waveforms are Doppler sensitive, requiring

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We present a real-time intermediate frequency noise radar signal generator that provides pseudo-random signals with uniform, normal, exponential, and Rayleigh probability distributions. In addition, normally distributed samples with uniform power spectral distribution with arbitrary bandwidths can be generated. The noise signal generator is implemented and tested on a Xilinx Ultrascale+ RFSoC FPGA

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This article is the third of a three-part series in which we present the results of a study exploring concepts for improving communications and tracking capabilities of deep space SmallSats. In Part I, we discussed SmallSat direct-to-Earth links as well as SmallSat communications equipment, and provided recommendations for future work. In Part II, we focused on SmallSat navigation options, disruption

The ever increasingly resident space object density poses a challenge for current and future space missions and assets. Space debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are of particular interest because they are present in the highest concentration with respect to the other orbits. Radio frequency systems, and particularly radar, prove to be suitable answers to the need of observing space object, especially

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In this article, a setup including a passive gas breakdown mitigation technique for satellite slip ring assemblies (SRAs) is introduced and tested. The setup features a central conducting ring, separated from two external conducting limiting discs (LDs) by insulating rings. The characteristic breakdown curves are measured as a function of the surrounding pressure by biasing the central ring and setting

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Recounts the career and contributions of Viktor Chernyak.

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Robotic exploration of the solar system using small satellites (SmallSats) is gaining popularity because of SmallSats’ lower cost and faster development cycle compared to primary science missions. A potential obstacle for deployment of SmallSats in deep space is the limitation associated with the communications link imposed by SmallSats' frugal power and antenna size. These technical limitations constrain

This article is the second of a three-part series in which we present the results of a study exploring concepts for improving communications and tracking capabilities of deep space SmallSats. In Part I, we discussed SmallSat direct-to-earth links and SmallSat communications equipment, and provided recommendations for future work. In Part II, we focus on SmallSat navigation options, Disruption Tolerant

As the “right-hand man” to space communications, navigation, environmental monitoring, and other satellite systems, the space active phased array antenna is capable of scanning and covering long distances and large scale ranges through its complex deployment mechanism, large physical aperture, and lightweight structural design. In comparison with mechanical scanning antennas, the space active phased

Radar operation in a spectrally dense environment is nowadays a very challenging problem due to the increasing demand of spectral resources for defence/surveillance applications, remote sensing capabilities, and civilian wireless services. This article explores the technical feasibility of radar waveforms capable of ensuring spectral coexistence with overlaid emitters via a modern digital arbitrary

This article handles the topic of cognitive radar (CR) architecture design in the framework of multifunction radar operating in a resource-constrained and spectrum-constrained environment. Despite the advances in this field of research and its relative technologies, the way humans and echolocation mammals are able to interact with the external environment goes beyond the capability of any available

In this article, we discuss a novel signal processing technique for adaptive radar that permits joint target-matched illumination and interference avoidance in dynamic spectral environments. This approach allows for spectral coexistence between a radar system and a primary user of the radio frequency space. Spectral coexistence is exploited to allow the use of higher bandwidths than would otherwise

In contrast to the feed-forward sensing chain employed by classical radar systems, cognitive radars use the perceived information about the environment to reconfigure their transmissions. While most of the efforts in the literature focus on software-based adaptations, this article proposes adaptive control of a radar hardware, multifunctional reconfigurable antennas (MRAs), for target detection and

As the main data transport protocol of delay/disruption-tolerant networking, Licklider transmission protocol (LTP) is developed to provide reliable and highly efficient data delivery over unreliable deep-space and interplanetary communication channels. For reliable data delivery, a checkpoint (CP) segment of LTP is sent, with a timer set (or, simply, CP timer) to check the arrival status of the entire

The automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast system is a pillar of the future air traffic control system. It is a surveillance system in which air planes transmit their information (identity, position, velocity, etc.) in broadcast to any listener equipped with a receiver. Networks of ADS-B receivers have been installed all over the world, producing a clear traffic awareness for air traffic controllers

As part of overall ocean dynamic satellite research, the atmospheric correction microwave radiometer (ACMR) used to correct atmospheric path delay in the radar altimeter has been developed recently. The ACMR, composed of an observing antenna (OA) and calibration antenna, operates at 18.7, 23.8, and 37 GHz for improving atmospheric retrieval accuracy. The dual-polarized OA is realized by an offset deployable

This article presents a novel method for the management of UAVs formations. Based on the fast marching square (FM2) technique, the proposed method allows the generation of soft realizable paths for a formation in leader–followers configuration, keeping a desired geometry among its different agents. The solution presented here also allows the UAVs formation to adapt its shape so that the obstacles can

Computation of matrix exponentials is commonly encountered in aerospace and electronic systems. Computing matrix exponentials via a reverse summation of the truncated Taylor series is discussed.

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Superposition and entanglement, the quintessential characteristics of quantum physics, have been shown to provide communication, computation, and sensing capabilities that go beyond what classical physics will permit. It is natural, therefore, to explore their application to radar, despite the fact that decoherence—caused by the loss and noise encountered in radar sensing—destroys these fragile quantum

Many quantum radars currently studied in the literature use a phenomenon called entanglement to address the problem of distinguishing signal from noise, which is one of the most important problems faced by any radar. Until recently, entanglement-based quantum radars at radio frequencies existed only in theory; their practicality was very much in doubt. The situation has changed with a recent experimental

In this article, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally how one can exploit correlations generated in monolithic semiconductor quantum light sources to enhance the performance of optical target detection. A prototype target detection protocol, the quantum time-correlation (QTC) detection protocol, with spontaneous parametric down-converted photon-pair sources, is discussed. The QTC protocol

We report on the development of detection methods for amplitude and phase of pulsed radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic fields with Rydberg atoms. We begin with an overview of the basic principles of Rydberg-atom-based sensing and measurement of RF electromagnetic fields. An overview of the underlying atomic physics and the method for amplitude as well as phase sensing of electromagnetic radiation

Quantum remote sensing, also known as quantum detection and ranging (QUDAR), is the use of entangled photon states to detect targets at a stand-off distance. It inherently relies on sending many single photons through free space, bouncing off of a target and returning to the sensor. It is therefore necessary to understand how single photons interact and scatter from targets of macroscopic size. This

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BioSentinel is a 6U nanosatellite planned to launch in 2020 as a secondary payload onboard NASA's Space Launch System first exploration mission, Artemis-1, from which it will be deployed to a lunar fly-by trajectory leading to a heliocentric orbit. BioSentinel will conduct the first in situ measurements of biological response to space radiation outside low Earth orbit (LEO) in five decades; it will

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