A Short History of Radar

The principles of radar are not new; in fact, some early experiments were made back in 1880s. In 1904 a German engineer had invented, an he explained, a ‘radio-echo collision prevention device’. By 1922 the famed electronics engineer, Marconi devised a principle of sending radio signals between ships which would be reflected back to a receiver on the sending ship and thereby immediately reveal the presence and bearing of the other ship in fog or thick weather. This is the basic principleusedin all radars.

Further improvements on this concept were developed, including the introduction of the ‘pulse’ principles onwhichmodern radar is based. During the period 1935 - 1940, successfulpulse radar systems were produced independently and,nearly at thesame time, in the United States, England, France and Germany.

The application of radar in air traffic control systems consists of two basic designs. The initial type of radar, called primary radar, began to be used in most parts of the world in the early 1950s. Another form of radar, secondary surveillance radar (SSR) is used for advanced air traffic control. When the word ‘radar’ is used alone, it usually includes both primary and secondary radar.

In primary radar a beam of individual pulses of energy is transmitted from the ground equipment at the rate approximately 1.200 per second, while the transmitting antenna rotates at a speed of 3 to 6 rpm for long-range systems, and as fast as 60 rpm for aircraft coverage. These pulses hit the aircraft from 16 to 34- times each scan, depending upon the rotation rate of the antenna and the width of the beam. An aircraft in the path of this radar beam will reflect back some of the pulses which are picked up by a receiving element on the ground antenna. The strength of the reflected energy depends on the aircraft's size and altitude, in addition to the power of the transmitter. This reflected energy produces a bright ‘echo’ or ‘target’ on a cathode ray tube. The bearing of the target from the radar site is known from the location of the echo on the CRT. (Cathode Ray Tube). The distance of the target from the radar site is determined in the time it takes the radar pulse to travel from the radar site to the aircraft and back (about 1 nautical mile in 12.34 millions of a second or micro seconds).

The most common type of primary radar is the terminal area surveillance radar (ТАR), which was designed as medium range radar - about 50 miles - for the control of traffic in the vicinity of an airport. While the progress of moving targets is constantly tracked, display of fixed echoes reflecting from mountains or other obstructions may or may not be displayed. The normal rotation of а ТАR is approximately 13 rрm, so that the traffic situation is updated every few seconds.

Another type of primary radar used in control of air traffic is the long-range radar known as the en-route surveillance radar (RSR). This system has a range up to about 200 miles and will detect aircraft up to an altitude of about 40.000feet. It is used in area control centres for the control of en-route traffic. The RSR normally is provided with features similar to the TAR. Because of its slower rotation - 3 or 6 rpm and other factors, its accuracy and resolution are not as high as the TAR.

These are the more common types of primary radar used today; other primary radars are PAR and GCA which are not so common.