Noninvasive Characterization of Solid Particle Streams Enclosed in a Dielectric Pipeline by a Bistatic Doppler Radar

This paper compares two radar configurations operating in the W-band with different antenna systems for measuring particle streams in the near-field range. A complex source beam is employed to describe the field characteristics. This new approach is used to derive the associated antenna gain and power patterns and applied in the radar equation for particle streams. We demonstrate how indoor measurements benefit from a bistatic radar configuration and provide measurement results for streams with particles in the micrometer size range. Owing to the bistatic configuration of the radar, the particle stream flowing through a plastic pipe has been detected showing the low interference caused by pipe walls, which enables nondestructive monitoring of particle streams through the dielectric pipe section.