Experimental verification of measurement principle in standing wave radar capable of measuring distances down to zero meters

Abstract

In general, it is difficult to measure short distances by radar, which has a minimum detection distance of several meters. The standing wave radar proposed by the present authors has a minimum detection distance of about 2 m when the frequency bandwidth is 76 MHz. A solution to reduce the minimum detection distance is to increase the frequency bandwidth. This is not realistic due to limits imposed by radio regulations. The authors have proposed a method with measurable distances down to 0 m without enlarging the bandwidth and have presented the configuration and the measurement principle. The measurement principle has been verified by numerical simulation. In the present paper, the measurement principle is experimentally verified by using an actual standing wave radar and the realizability of a standing wave radar with measurement capability down to 0 m is confirmed. It is shown that the distance to the target at locations closer than the minimum detection distance of 2 m (0.14, 0.3, 0.5, and 1 m) can be measured with an error of several centimeters for a frequency bandwidth of 76 MHz at 24 GHz. For distances less than 0.14 m, the target could not be placed closer than 0.14 m due to positional interference of the target and the antenna in the present experimental environment so that physical confirmation was not possible. However, at the confirmed distance, the range spectrum predicted from the theory is obtained. Hence, it is considered possible to make measurements without special restrictions. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 90(9): 25– 34, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20375