On the design of integrated HF radar systems for Homeland Security applications

In this paper, HCAC's research and development efforts on the development of integrated and low cost HF radar for coastal surveillance and other Homeland Security applications are summarized. The proposed design incorporates electrically small antenna for rapid deployment, supports operation on floating platforms by using enhanced DSP algorithms to mitigate clutter, incorporates improved propagation modeling to more accurately select optimum frequency channels based on atmospheric conditions and overcome the errors due to terrain effects, utilizes Genetic Programming for automatic target recognition and classification, and provides for passive radar operation utilizing existing broadcast transmitters to enable covert operation.