Partially coherent radar unties range resolution from bandwidth limitations.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30926800.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-09380-x and PMC identifier 6441069.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
It is widely believed that range resolution, the ability to distinguish between two closely situated targets, depends inversely on the bandwidth of the transmitted radar signal. Here we demonstrate a different type of ranging system, which possesses superior range resolution that is almost completely free of bandwidth limitations. By sweeping over the coherence length of the transmitted signal, the partially coherent radar experimentally demonstrates an improvement of over an order of magnitude in resolving targets, compared to standard coherent radars with the same bandwidth. A theoretical framework is developed to show that the resolution could be further improved without a bound, revealing a tradeoff between bandwidth and sweep time. This concept offers solutions to problems which require high range resolution and accuracy but available bandwidth is limited, as is the case for the autonomous car industry, optical imaging, and astronomy to name just few.