It is hoped that you will find this book as interesting and
enjoyable to read as it was to write.
Key Features
As you will undoubtedly find, the book is unique in several respects.
First, beginning from scratch, it presents the wide range of airboe radar techniques in the form of an unfolding saga, not of individuals, but of radar concepts and principles. Each chapter tells a story, and the story flows naturally on from chapter to chapter.
Second, the book is designed to fulfill the needs of all who want to lea about radar, regardless of their technical backgrounds. It has sufficient technical depth and mathematical rigor to satisfy the instructor, the engineer, the professor. Yet, as long as a reader has a basic understanding of algebra and knows a little trigonometry and physics, the text painlessly takes the reader in bite-sized increments to the point of being able to talk on a sound footing with the radar experts.
Third, every technical concept is illustrated with a simple diagram immediately next to the text it relates to. Every illustration has a concise caption, which enables it to stand alone.
Fourth, to keep the text simple, where additional detail may be desired by some readers but not all, it is conveniently placed in a blue panel which one may skip, on a first reading, and come back to later on and examine at leisure. Exceptions, caveats, and reviewers comments are presented without detracting from the simplicity of the text in brief side notes.
These features lead to the perhaps most unique aspect of the book. One can follow the development of each chapter by reading just the text, or just the illustrations and captions, or by seamlessly moving along between text and illustrations. Yet another unique feature. Recognizing that people interested in airboe radar love airplanes, dispersed through the book are photos and renderings of radarbearing aircraft, spanning the history of airboe radar from the Bristol Beaufighter of 1940 to the B-2 Bomber and F-22 fighter of today.
What’s New
If you’re familiar with the first edition, you may be wondering what’s new in the second?
Prompted by the advent of stealth, the daunting prospect of ever more sophisticated radar countermeasures, and the explosive growth of digital-processing throughput, which has made practical many radar techniques long considered blue sky, 12 new chapters have been added. Briefly, they cover the following:
Electronically steered array antennas (ESAs)—besides providing extreme beam agility, they’re a
must for stealth
Antenna RCS reduction—also a crucial requirement of stealth
Low-probability of intercept techniques (LPI) —besides greatly reducing vulnerability to countermeasures, they amazingly enable a radar to detect targets without its signals being usefully detected by an enemy
Electronic countermeasures, counter countermeasures, and intelligence functions
Multi-frequency operation and small-signal target detection—also essential in the era of stealth—
plus space-time adaptive processing, true-timedelay beam steering, and 3-D SAR
New modes and approaches to mode control that take advantage of the ESA’s versatility
Advanced airboe digital processing architectures—key to most of the above capabilities
Detection and tracking of low-speed moving targets on the ground—an important topic missed in
the first edition.
To illustrate the application of the basic radar principles, the book ends by briefly describing a dozen or so airboe radars currently in service in applications ranging from long-range surveillance to environmental monitoring. Also warranting mention, the first three chapters have been extensively modified to provide a complete overview of virtually all of the basic principles and
advanced features presented in the body of the book.
These chapters may be useful in providing a standalone briefing on mode radar for students wanting a quick introduction to the subject.
Acknowledgements
Needless to say, I’m deeply grateful to the following engineers of the Hughes Aircraft Company (now a part of Raytheon) past and present, who have reviewed various sections of the book and contributed valuable suggestions, technical information, and insights.
For the first edition: Eddie Phillips, Ben DeWaldt, Nate Greenblatt, Dave Goltzman, Kurt Harrison, Scott Fairchild, Verde Pieroni, Morris Swiger, Jeff Hoffner, John Wittmond, Fred Williams, Pete Demopolis, Denny Riggs, and Hugh Washbu.
For the new chapters: Doug Benedict, John Griffith, Don Parker, Steve Panaretos, Howard Nussbaum, Robert Rosen, Bill Posey, John Wittmond, Dave Sjolund, Lee Tower, Larry Petracelli, Robert Frankot, and Irwin Newberg.
I am extremely grateful to Merrill Skolnik and Russell Lefevre (who reviewed an early draft of the second edition for the IEEE) for their encouragement and helpful suggestions.
Also, thanks are due to Hugh Griffiths of University College London and his colleagues, Dr. David Belcher and Prof. Chris Oliver of DERA Malve, for the excellent SAR maps they provided; and to Gerald Kaiser, then professor at the University of Massachusetts- Lowell, who on his own initiative in anticipation of the second edition combed through the first from cover to cover to spot overlooked typos and other errors.
In addition, abundant thanks go to Hughes’ ever helpful Al Pe?a for securing the negatives of the first edition for reuse in this edition. Finally, special thanks to Shyam Reyes, for his invaluable
aid with page composition and artwork, and to Dudley Kay and Denise May of SciTech, without whom the publication of this edition would not have been possible.
G.W. S. , San Marino, Califoia
Key Features
As you will undoubtedly find, the book is unique in several respects.
First, beginning from scratch, it presents the wide range of airboe radar techniques in the form of an unfolding saga, not of individuals, but of radar concepts and principles. Each chapter tells a story, and the story flows naturally on from chapter to chapter.
Second, the book is designed to fulfill the needs of all who want to lea about radar, regardless of their technical backgrounds. It has sufficient technical depth and mathematical rigor to satisfy the instructor, the engineer, the professor. Yet, as long as a reader has a basic understanding of algebra and knows a little trigonometry and physics, the text painlessly takes the reader in bite-sized increments to the point of being able to talk on a sound footing with the radar experts.
Third, every technical concept is illustrated with a simple diagram immediately next to the text it relates to. Every illustration has a concise caption, which enables it to stand alone.
Fourth, to keep the text simple, where additional detail may be desired by some readers but not all, it is conveniently placed in a blue panel which one may skip, on a first reading, and come back to later on and examine at leisure. Exceptions, caveats, and reviewers comments are presented without detracting from the simplicity of the text in brief side notes.
These features lead to the perhaps most unique aspect of the book. One can follow the development of each chapter by reading just the text, or just the illustrations and captions, or by seamlessly moving along between text and illustrations. Yet another unique feature. Recognizing that people interested in airboe radar love airplanes, dispersed through the book are photos and renderings of radarbearing aircraft, spanning the history of airboe radar from the Bristol Beaufighter of 1940 to the B-2 Bomber and F-22 fighter of today.
What’s New
If you’re familiar with the first edition, you may be wondering what’s new in the second?
Prompted by the advent of stealth, the daunting prospect of ever more sophisticated radar countermeasures, and the explosive growth of digital-processing throughput, which has made practical many radar techniques long considered blue sky, 12 new chapters have been added. Briefly, they cover the following:
Electronically steered array antennas (ESAs)—besides providing extreme beam agility, they’re a
must for stealth
Antenna RCS reduction—also a crucial requirement of stealth
Low-probability of intercept techniques (LPI) —besides greatly reducing vulnerability to countermeasures, they amazingly enable a radar to detect targets without its signals being usefully detected by an enemy
Electronic countermeasures, counter countermeasures, and intelligence functions
Multi-frequency operation and small-signal target detection—also essential in the era of stealth—
plus space-time adaptive processing, true-timedelay beam steering, and 3-D SAR
New modes and approaches to mode control that take advantage of the ESA’s versatility
Advanced airboe digital processing architectures—key to most of the above capabilities
Detection and tracking of low-speed moving targets on the ground—an important topic missed in
the first edition.
To illustrate the application of the basic radar principles, the book ends by briefly describing a dozen or so airboe radars currently in service in applications ranging from long-range surveillance to environmental monitoring. Also warranting mention, the first three chapters have been extensively modified to provide a complete overview of virtually all of the basic principles and
advanced features presented in the body of the book.
These chapters may be useful in providing a standalone briefing on mode radar for students wanting a quick introduction to the subject.
Acknowledgements
Needless to say, I’m deeply grateful to the following engineers of the Hughes Aircraft Company (now a part of Raytheon) past and present, who have reviewed various sections of the book and contributed valuable suggestions, technical information, and insights.
For the first edition: Eddie Phillips, Ben DeWaldt, Nate Greenblatt, Dave Goltzman, Kurt Harrison, Scott Fairchild, Verde Pieroni, Morris Swiger, Jeff Hoffner, John Wittmond, Fred Williams, Pete Demopolis, Denny Riggs, and Hugh Washbu.
For the new chapters: Doug Benedict, John Griffith, Don Parker, Steve Panaretos, Howard Nussbaum, Robert Rosen, Bill Posey, John Wittmond, Dave Sjolund, Lee Tower, Larry Petracelli, Robert Frankot, and Irwin Newberg.
I am extremely grateful to Merrill Skolnik and Russell Lefevre (who reviewed an early draft of the second edition for the IEEE) for their encouragement and helpful suggestions.
Also, thanks are due to Hugh Griffiths of University College London and his colleagues, Dr. David Belcher and Prof. Chris Oliver of DERA Malve, for the excellent SAR maps they provided; and to Gerald Kaiser, then professor at the University of Massachusetts- Lowell, who on his own initiative in anticipation of the second edition combed through the first from cover to cover to spot overlooked typos and other errors.
In addition, abundant thanks go to Hughes’ ever helpful Al Pe?a for securing the negatives of the first edition for reuse in this edition. Finally, special thanks to Shyam Reyes, for his invaluable
aid with page composition and artwork, and to Dudley Kay and Denise May of SciTech, without whom the publication of this edition would not have been possible.
G.W. S. , San Marino, Califoia