TTW radar systems - A survey

Authors:

  • Stefan Nilsson

Publish date: 2015-12-22

Report number: FOI-R--4122--SE

Pages: 17

Written in: Swedish

Keywords:

  • “See-through-the-wall”
  • TTW radar
  • wall penetrating radar
  • Doppler radar
  • urban
  • surveillance

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to provide an updated survey of both military and civilian wall penetrating radar systems that are currently available on the commercial market. The reported information about the systems have mainly been obtained from open sources. The systems are briefly presented with related information on technical and if available operational performance. One purpose of the report is that the information can be used by an end user to make an assessment of which system that fits his needs. The study has been conducted within the Swedish Armed Forces' project Radar for Surveillance, and is a follow up on the two similar studies that FOI conducted in 2005 and 2011. In this context it is also worth mentioning the technical evaluation of selected commercial wall-penetrating system that FOI completed in 2012. The study notes that few new wall-penetrating systems have come onto the market since the last study, and the development of new advanced system seems to have stalled. The present development is focused on smaller, simpler and less expensive systems, with the ability to detect and determine the distance to moving objects. Examples of such new products on the market are Xaver 100, Range-R and the Swedish CPR4. Among the 2D and 3D imaging systems, based on UWB pulse technology and group antenna solutions, the Israeli-American system Xaver 800 has few competitors in terms of technical and operational performance. The most advanced systems are due to their technical complexity very expensive, and this, in combination with a small exclusive market, makes it understandable that the product development primarily takes place among the simpler and cheaper systems. One indication of the tough market is that the first imaging system SoldierVision/RadarVision is no longer manufactured. The development and manufacturing of wall-penetrating systems are primarily in the United States and Israel, and on a smaller scale also in the United Kingdom, China, the Czech Republic and Sweden. Virtually all systems are using UWB technology to create high range resolution and Doppler signal processing methods to detect movements. Most manufacturers claims that their systems are capable of detecting human breathing. A few systems, e.g. Xaver 400 and Xaver 800, can also image stationary echoes from the interior of a room. This extra information can be very important, eg. in planning intrusion operations. No system is able to determine whether a person is carrying a weapon or not. Given the difficult propagation environment and that the detection methods are Doppler based, this ability has no potential to be realized.