Wideband Radar Micro-Doppler Applications

Wideband radar provides a significant improvement over traditional narrowband radars for micro-Doppler analysis because the high bandwidth can be used to separate many of the signals in range, allowing a simpler decomposition of the micro-Doppler signals. Recent wideband radar work has focused on micro-Doppler, but there is a point where the narrowband approach used to analyze the micro-Doppler signals breaks down. The effect is shown to be independent of frequency, but the error relative to the bandwidth is shown to be inversely proportional to the frequency and proportional to the velocity of the subject. This error can create a smearing effect in the observed Doppler if it is not corrected, leading to reduced signal-to-noise and the appearance of more diffuse targets in Doppler space. In range-space, wideband data can also break the subject into several range bins, affecting the observed signal to noise ratio. The possible applications of wideband micro-Doppler radar are also shown, including the separation of arm movement from human motion which implies that the arms are not encumbered.