The Development of an Independent Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave Radar for Perimeter Security

Abstract

The accessibility of Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars has provided several diverse industries with a microwave sensor that can be utilized reliably for many different applications. The research specified in this thesis focuses primarily on the perimeter security industry with the application of detecting human targets through the use of FMCW radar. The foundational efforts that this research entails is the development of an FMCW radar where every component of the radar will eventually end up as independently user designed. The purpose of achieving the independent hardware design is pave the way for further hardware and software improvements without being hampered by the currently cumbersome and limited hardware setup. The achievement of an independent setup will open a lot more options to modifying and improving the FMCW radar. As of now, the FMCW radar setup is composed of pre-built hardware that was purchased and constructed together in the Microwaves Lab. Using this purchased hardware, an algorithm is made to process the data in order to create a full functional FMCW radar. The experiments relating to the algorithm is presented and documented as a troubleshooting guide. Once the algorithm is completed, alternative pre-built hardware is used as an indicator for the algorithm’s capability with other hardware. This information will validate the compatibility of the algorithm for the hardware that is going to be designed in the Microwaves Lab. Once the several experiments with the algorithm are completed, an approach to the independent design of the FMCW radar will be introduced. In this thesis, this approach will introduce the antenna design portion of the FMCW radar. The antenna design is primarily focusing on factors that would contribute to human detection. The preliminary simulation of the antenna is intended to be developed further upon until a fabrication of the antenna is achieved. Once a fully capable FMCW radar can be realized for each component of the setup, significant improvements can be achieved on the radar setup. These improvements can be: improving the number of targets that can be tracked simultaneously (as related to the antenna design), minimizing the physical size of the hardware (which is the result of transitioning the code from MATLAB to C++), and experimenting this completed setup with other hardware to potentially extend the range of the radar without increasing the power (from the usage of the reflectarray attachment). Some of these future works can extend the application of FMCW radars to other industries outside of perimeter security.