Fulbright Distinguished Chair Public Lecture by Professor Douglas Cochran, Arizona State University
The 2015 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Advanced Science and Technology, sponsored by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group (DST Group), is Professor Douglas Cochran from the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University.
Professor Cochran will present on Passive Radar: An Electromagnetically Green Technology:
Most modern radars are active, meaning that they transmit radio signals explicitly to accommodate their sensing objectives. This is analogous to carrying a torch on a dark night: the transmitted electromagnetic energy (light) illuminates the scene, scattering back to the receiver (eye) to enable understanding of the illuminated environment. One seldom need to carry a torch in daylight or in a well-lighted room because ambient electromagnetic energy (from the sun, light globes, etc.) is adequate to illuminate the environment. In this case, one only needs eyes to sense in the environment. Passive radar does not transmit radio-frequency signals, rather it exploits ambient radio-frequency illumination provided by transmitters such as television, radio, cellular telephone towers, and active radars. Passive radar offers some advantages over active radar, particularly in covertness of operation and in not further cluttering increasingly scarce radio spectrum resources with additional transmissions (i.e., it is “electromagnetically green”). But it presents many challenges as well. This talk introduces the concept of passive radar, its features and challenges. It further explains why passive radar has garnered much recent international interest and touches on Australia’s prominence in international passive radar R&D.