Experimental validation of a frustum of cone antenna applied to Omega 360 ubiquitous 2D radar

This paper describes an ubiquitous 2D radar, called Omega 360, capable of a rose of adjacent simultaneous staring beams which allow a continuous bi-dimensional coverage of the controlled space. In particular, the attention is focused on the antenna features obtained by means of a frustum of cone. The signal received by every column is amplified, digitally down converted and combined to form independent beams. The current configuration of the Digital Antenna Evaluator (D.Ant.E) is arranged to create 8 simultaneous beams that are enough for the purpose of the study aimed at the experimental demonstration of the functionalities of an ubiquitous radar. In particular, attention is paid to verify the antenna pattern characteristics after Digital Beam Forming (DBF) downstream of pulse compression. The benches of measurement and the adopted methodology are discussed in detail. Finally, some future objectives are envisaged in order to accomplish a full chain of signal processing up to the plot extraction and track formation. In fact, the industrial aim is the realization of a complete radar to be used for civil and military applications.