Work is in progress to complete stabilising the network that connects the Quantum oscillator to the radar and evaluate the staring radar performance improvement as a function of oscillator characteristics in real-life, complex radar environments. This will enable to get a deep understanding of the fundamental limits of radar hardware on performance for monostatic configurations.
Furthermore, in dense urban environments, radar clutter’s spatio-temporal characteristics along with multipath are closely dependent on the transmitter-target-receiver geometry. These effects can be mitigated by spatially distributing the sensors to create a multistatic architecture but its then reliant on good synchronisation between each node in the network. The ultra-stable quantum oscillator can be used as master clock to synchronise the two systems and produce a fully coherent networked testbed. The aim is to measure the performance of the networked radar and explore applications for next generation RF surveillance systems. The investigations will result in understanding of different target scattering mechanisms that takes place over multiple observation angles, further enriching the information pertaining to targets. Using the results from the radar testbed, we aim to create RF scattering models for both targets and background which will be crucial to the development and take-up of networked radar sensing.
In summary the Quantum-enabled networked radar testbed will allow us to not only conduct the generic research on factors limiting radar performance, but also demonstrate its advantages for specific industrial applications, like counter-drone surveillance and aeroecology at a high technology readiness level and in real conditions. Such demonstrations will increase confidence on the readiness of the technology and expedite industrial adoption where the opportunity arises.