ASTRID-Maturation - ASTRID-Maturation

Surface Wave HF Radar Simulator – SimROS

Submission summary

The SimROS project aims to develop a Surface Wave Radar (SWR) simulator able to predict the detection of boats located at large distances from the coast when the target is beyond the radar horizon. This project is in perfect connection with the surveillance of the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zones) covering distances up to 370 km from the coast. Two different techniques are available for this purpose: the use of sky waves which are reflected by the ionospheric layers and the use of ground waves. The first approach is not relevant as the distance for the first hop occurrence might be too large and also in reason of its strong dependency on the ionospheric conditions.
In the frame of the ANR PROPHETE, several softwares able to deal with long distance propagation using the ground wave have been developed. The relevance of the methodology has been demonstrated to include the environment (surface impedance discontinuities, ground roughness, sea state,..) in the simulations. This capability to carefully address the environment is a key point for the HF SWR and the software tools developed in PROPHETE have demonstrated such a capability.

To address the SWR problem, some partial solutions exist, but to our knowledge, none is able to give a complete answer regarding the total link budget starting from the source toward the receiver and the radar imaging. To bridge this gap, this proposal includes all modules required in the radar processing to obtain a full capability SWR simulator. The different modules to be integrated are the following:
• The choice of the transmitted signal (waveform),
• The resolution of the antenna problem (radiation and reception modes) ;
• The research of an antenna radiating model in the form of equivalent radiating dipoles. These models will take the near environment into account,
• The possibility of introducing a numerical model of the ground,
• The long propagation distance calculation on a rough surface ground and on the sea,
• The calculation of the target response by means of a specific definition of the Radar Cross Section (RCS) for ground waves,
• The integration of the sea clutter and of the ionospheric clutter in the back scattered field,
• The signal processing of the noisy signal to extract the target location and identify it.
On the contrary to the previous study, made in the frame of the ANR PROPHETE, the calculations will be made on antenna arrays in radiating and receiving modes and not only on one antenna for each mode. One of the interests of the proposed approach for the calculation of the propagated field is its speed in terms of computational time which makes it able to replay calculations on different cuts extracted from the ground surface on a standard PC.

Some bricks useful for the final tool have already been studied in the ANR PROPHETE and their feasibility has been demonstrated. This is the case of the dipole model of the HF antennas for the near field radiation calculation, the propagation tool using the parabolic equation and the extraction of a surface wave pole introduced as a source term in the propagation tools.

Some other points have not been addressed. For example, it is the case of the ground wave RCS calculation. Such a concept, usually defined in a plane wave context constitutes one of the original aspects of the proposed study.
The choice of the transmitted signal as well as the treatment of the received signals in an antenna network array is also a new topic in this project.
Finally, the ionospheric noise calculation has not been taken into account in the previous work. its contribution will be accumulated in the noise factor.
SIMROS will provide the user with a friendly interface. A special interest will be dedicated to the easy of use and to the quasi intuitive way to chain the different functions. It is also foreseen to verify the results obtained by comparing them with measurements realized by Onera for some typical systems in operation.

Project coordination

Alain REINEIX (XLIM)

The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.

Partner

XLIM XLIM
L2E Laboratoire d'Electronique et d'Electromagnétisme/ Sorbonne Université
CISTEME CISTEME
IEEA IEEA
ONERA ONERA CENTRE PALAISEAU

Help of the ANR 498,861 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project: December 2017 - 36 Months

Useful links

Explorez notre base de projets financés

 

 

ANR makes available its datasets on funded projects, click here to find more.

Sign up for the latest news:
Subscribe to our newsletter