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Bistatic radar for Weather Observation

Bistatic Weather Radar

Figure 1: Monostatic Doppler- Radar with bistatic receivers

Bistatic radar for Weather Observation

There is a Bistatic Multi-Doppler Radar Network consisting of three bistatic receivers and the transmitting and additional receiving polarisation- Doppler Radar POLDIRAD around Oberpfaffenhofen used to monitor weather. Current research topics are the determination of 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional wind fields with 3 bistatic receivers. Furthermore, investigations on reducing errors in wind field measurements to use them as input data for mesoscale models are carried out.

More: http://www.pa.op.dlr.de/
and in the Chapter Weather Radar of this home page.

militärische Anwendung des Bistatischen Radars
Launch ramp
CWIR
Azimuth and
elevation angle
Bow antenna
Tail antenna

Figure 2: The HAWK guidance system is a bistatic radar in its final phase.

Military application of bistatic radar

Bistatic radar techniques are also widely used in missile guidance of anti-aircraft missiles.

Semi-active target search

The operation of the semi-active target search is as follows: The energy emitted by the ground guidance system and reflected by the target is received in the missile. At the same time, it also receives the signals emitted by the ground guidance system. From this information, the missile calculates its course corrections.
Example: Hawk

Track Via Missile

From the missile's point of view, this is a passive guidance procedure. After launch, the missile is tracked by the radar. The guidance commands and the feedback from the missile form the control loop with the weapon system computer. In the final phase of flight, the missile locks onto the target with a radar receiver in the nose and transmits the data to the ground station. From this, more accurate guidance commands are calculated, and the course is corrected.

Examples: Radar sets of the AN/MPQ-53 (“Patriot”) and 30N6E “Flap Lid” (SA-10 “Grumble”) air defense missile complexes.