UBC, Inc., an engineering firm performing research, development, and limited production of advanced technology over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, specializing in millimeter wave, infrared sensors, and threat simulation, proposes an SBIR program to provide design, analysis, and hardware for development and demonstration of a multipath suppression and imaging radar which provides super-resolution through a combination of break-through technologies in focal plane imaging, coherent processing, and telecentric optics. Phase I demonstrated through modeling and measurement that the techniques have much merit and provide angular resolution many times better than indicated by diffraction limits; i.e., resolution of objects and detail on the order of monopulse tracking accuracies against point target. Such resolution was previously only available through SAR techniques. The proposed system operates in staring mode. The effects of multipath on direction finding capability are profound and have been historically difficult to defeat. Many techniques have been tried over the years, with only limited success. The accuracies required in the battlefield environment and the restrictions imposed by ever varying grazing angle and multipath conditions, coupled with the increasing range of tank ammunition, combine to make the solution increasingly important. This program provides a solution. The proposed technique provides full MMIC Focal Plane Array compatibility.
Benefits: The proposed hardware provides a high pay-off in that the resolution performance of Microwave and MMW radar are at once dramatically improved and the equation between aperture size and resolution is broken. This opens the way for new uses of radar. It also provides for an excellent imaging radiometry system.
