Detection of objects by synthetic aperture FM‐CW radar

The frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FM-CW) radar is suitable for detecting objects placed in the near range compared to the pulse radars. This paper considers the principle of the synthetic aperture technique for the conventional FM-CW radar and presents the fundamental detection results of objects placed in the free space. A laboratory measurement is carried out to detect a metallic plate and a pipe in an anechoic chamber using an explored radar system operative in the microwave X-band. This demonstrates the high resolution detection in azimuth direction in the Fresnel region. It is shown that the radar has a potential ability in imaging objects placed in the near range.