Spectral and spatial diversity measurements in the Mumma Radar Lab

Due to rapid advancement in algorithms, high performance computing, digital electronics, and RF (radio frequency) hardware, the design of modern radar now incorporates both spectral and spatial diversity .Driving the state-of-the-art is shared-spectrum waveforms for the co-design of radar, communication and navigation systems, as well as thin spectrum and multiband signals. Spatially diverse multi-static radar, including RF Tomography [1], MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) and DAR (distributed aperture radar) [2] are already emerging in the field. Calibration is challenging in traditional radar, and even more so in spectrally and spatially diverse systems. Instrumentation radar measurements are time consuming and costly. This paper proposes an alternative approach to the traditional sensor measurements that demand a quite zone in an anechoic chamber or an isolated outdoor radar range. Research in the MRL (Mumma Radar Lab) is currently focused on ISAR (inverse synthetic aperture radar), GPR (ground penetrating radar) and RF Tomography, all under calibrated conditions.