A Submillimeter-Wave FMCW Pulse-Doppler Radar to Characterize the Dynamics of Particle Clouds

This work presents a 340-GHz frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) pulse-Doppler radar. The radar system is based on a transceiver module with about one milli-Watt output power and more than 30-GHz bandwidth. The front-end optics consists of an off-axis parabola fed by a horn antenna from the transceiver unit, resulting in a collimated radar beam. The digital radar waveform generation allows for coherent and arbitrary FMCW pulse waveforms. The performance in terms of sensitivity and resolution (range/cross-range/velocity) is demonstrated, and the system's ability to detect and map single particles (0.1–10 mm diameter), as well as clouds of particles, at a 5-m distance, is presented. A range resolution of $\sim$1 cm and a cross-range resolution of a few centimeters (3-dB beamwidth) allow for the characterization of the dynamics of particle clouds with a measurement voxel size of a few cubic centimeters. The monitoring of particle dynamics is of interest in several industrial applications, such as in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and the control/analysis of fluidized bed combustion reactors.