How can Laser Radar Solve the Problem of Traditional Radar Better

UESTC Glasgow College, Grade 2017, Liang Yiying, 2017200503025
Foreword

In the freshman seminar, the teacher mainly introduced the development process of radar, an important invention, to us, and raised the achievements and problems of radar research at the present stage. In today’s society, radar is no longer only able to be used in war as in the past, but is widely used in social and economic development (e.g. meteorological forecasting, resources detection and environmental monitoring, etc.) and scientific research (e.g. celestial research on atmospheric physics and ionospheric structure, etc.). Some radars have become very important sensors in remote sensing. Ground-based radar can detect the exact shape of the ground, and its spatial resolution can reach several meters to dozens of meters. Radar also shows great potential in flood monitoring, sea ice monitoring, soil moisture monitoring, forest resource inventory and geological survey. However, the ordinary radar has many problems that there are large detection blind area, the volume and mass of radar is not easy to carry, radar is easily interfered by external interference and other major problems and the resolution is relatively low. These problems will seriously affect the wider application and development of radar in society in the future. To find the solutions of these problems, the author reviewed the development history of radar in the past 200 years and found that a modern radar with rapid development can provide better solutions to the above problems. This is lidar (Laser Radar). Therefore, with curiosity, I browsed a lot of information about lidar, and I would like to show it here, only for sharing.

What is lidar?

LiDAR, which means Light Detection and Ranging, is a radar system can detect the target’s position and velocity by emitting laser beam. The working principle is to send detection signal (laser beam) to the target, and then compare the received signal reflected back from the target (target echo) with the transmitted signal. After appropriate processing, the relevant information of the target can be obtained, such as the target distance, azimuth, altitude, speed, posture and even shape parameters, in order to detect, track and identify the target. It is composed of laser transmitter, optical receiver, turntable and information processing system. The laser will change electrical pulse into optical pulse and emit it. The optical receiver then restores the light pulses reflected from the target to electrical pulses and sends them to the display.

Lidar is quite different from ordinary radar. Firstly, there is a significant difference in the wavelength of electromagnetic waves used. Ordinary radar uses lower frequency band than visible light and infrared light, while laser radar often uses infrared light, visible light (but it cannot be really seen) and ultraviolet light. In other words, the wavelength of lidar is obviously small, which has a relatively large impact on the resolution. Secondly, the electromagnetic wave emitted by ordinary radar is quite similar to radar in people’s general concept, that is, a bowl-shaped device emits conical electromagnetic wave to form electromagnetic radiation to the outside world, while lidar emits linear light particles.

Certainly, lidar works in the same basic way as radio radar. A signal sent by the radar transmitting system is collected by the receiving system after being reflected by the target, and the distance of the target is determined by measuring the running time of reflected light. As for the radial velocity of the target, it can be determined by the doppler frequency shift of reflected light, or by measuring two or more distances and calculating the rate of change. This is the basic principle of all direct detection radars.

Advantages of lidar

1.high resolution

Thanks to the fact that lidar has a smaller wavelength than ordinary radar, that is, a higher frequency, lidar can obtain a very high resolution of speed, angle and distance, which is of great significance for the development of radar. For example, high resolution is helpful for radar to detect small objects that cannot be detected by ordinary radar in obstacle detection, which is also a bottleneck of common radar in the development of science and technology. Laser radar can obtain clear image of target directly by using doppler imaging technology with high resolution, while traditional radar can only roughly confirm a series of parameters such as the position and speed of the target. Imaging is an extremely difficult field for ordinary radar to break through, which is the biggest advantage of lidar and most of lidar’s applications are based on this.

2.wide detection area

Ordinary radar will face a big problem, that is, when detecting low-altitude target, it will be strongly interfered by ground echo, resulting in the existence of blind area of radar field of vision. For lidar, only the target irradiated can generate reflection, and there is no influence of ground object echo at all. Therefore, it can work at zero altitude and its low-altitude detection performance is much stronger than other radar.

3.small in size & light weight

Generally, the size of ordinary radar is huge, the mass of the whole system is tons, and the aperture of optical antenna reaches several meters or even dozens of meters. Lidar, on the other hand, is much lighter and more agile. This has a lot to do with the signal emitted by the linear line, because the diameter of the signal source transmitted by the linear line is only centimeters in general, and the mass of the whole system is only a few dozen kilograms, which is very simple to set up, dismantle and retract. In addition, lidar is relatively simple in structure, easy to maintain, easy to operate and low in price.

4.good concealment & strong resistance to active interference

The laser beam with good directivity of linear propagation is very narrow and can only be received in its propagation path, so it is very difficult for the enemy to intercept it. In addition, the aperture of the laser radar transmitting system (transmitting telescope) is very small, the receiving area is narrow, and the probability of deliberately emitted laser interference signal entering the receiver is very low. Furthermore, unlike microwave radar, which is susceptible to electromagnetic waves widely existing in nature, there are not many signal sources that can interfere with lidar in nature. Therefore, lidar has a strong ability to resist active interference and is suitable for working in the increasingly complex and intense information warfare environment.

Disadvantages of lidar

1.easily being influenced by weather

Same as with high resolution, this is also the result of the type of signal source it chooses. The attenuation of laser is much faster than that of ordinary radio waves, and it is also greatly affected by the outside world. The attenuation is relatively small in clear weather, but the attenuation speed of laser increases sharply in rain and fog weather, and its propagation distance will be seriously affected. At the same time, the severe air flow fluctuation will also cause laser distortion and jitter, which directly affects the accuracy of measurement and detection.

2.poor ability to search for uncooperative targets

Affected by the narrow laser radar beam, it is very difficult to search targets in the space range, and targets can be only searched in a small range. The probability of interception and detection efficiency of non-cooperative targets are relatively low, and they cannot be well applied in the battlefield.

3.high requirements for equipment

Compared with millimeter-wave radar, lidar is more accurate in range identification of obstacles. However, due to its high resolution, the amount of data acquired by lidar is much higher than that of general radar. Therefore, a better performance processor is required to process the data, which makes lidar more expensive at present.

Summary

In the freshman seminar, the teacher mainly introduced the development and application of radar from the perspective of military, but did not give more introduction to the content of lidar. After consulting the data, I found that the reason may be that the characteristics of the laser radar itself and the traditional military radar used to search for the enemy are quite different. On the battlefield, the accuracy of target imaging is generally not necessary and the characteristics of linear transmission signal are difficult to meet the needs of large-scale enemy search. However, lidar and its principles are of great significance to some other majors, such as some geography majors related to surveying and mapping, as well as some industries with high requirements for imaging, such as photography. Applications of lidar in these areas are far from comparable to military radar, and the smaller size of lidar compared to other kinds of radar also makes it better suited for non-war applications. In the future, the development of lidar should be towards the direction of low cost and strong anti- jamming ability, and it should have quite good development prospect.