Antennas and Radar for Environmental Scientists and Engineers

Book excerpt: This book gives a complete overview of the scientific and engineering aspects of radio and radar pertaining to studies of the Earth environment. The book opens with an analysis of wire antennas, antenna arrays, and aperture antennas suitable for radar applications. Following a treatment of sources of noise, the book moves on to give a detailed presentation of the most important scattering mechanisms exploited by radar. It then provides an overview of basic signal processing strategies, including coherent and incoherent strategies. Pulse compression, especially binary phase coding and frequency chirping, are then analyzed, and the radar range-Doppler ambiguity function is introduced. This is followed by a comprehensive treatment of radio wave propagation in the atmosphere and ionosphere. The remainder of the book deals with radar applications. The book will be valuable for graduate students and researchers interested in antenna and radar applications across the Earth and environmental sciences and engineering.