Development of a networked photonic-enabled staring radar testbed for urban surveillance

Abstract

Urban surveillance of slow-moving small targets such as drones and birds in low to medium airspace using radar presents significant challenges. Detecting, locating and identifying such low observable targets in strong clutter requires both innovation in radar hardware design and optimisation of processing algorithms. To this end, the University of Birmingham (UoB) has set-up a testbed of two L-band staring radars to support performance benchmarking using datasets of target and clutter from realistic urban environment. This testbed is also providing the vehicle to understand how novel radar architectures can enhance radar capabilities. Some of the challenges in installing the radar at the UoB campus are highligted. Detailed benchmarking results are provided from urban monostatic and bistatic field trials that form the basis for performance comparison against future hardware modification. The solution to the challenge of interfacing the radar to the external oscillators is described and stand-alone bench tests with the candidate oscillators are reported. The testbed provides a valuable capability to undertake detailed analysis of performance of Quantum photonic-enabled radar and allows for its comparison with conventional oscillator technology for surveillance of low observable targets in the presence of urban clutter.