Efficient material characterization by means of the Doppler effect in microwaves

Subject of this thesis is the e±cient material characterization and defects detection by means of the Doppler effect with microwaves. The first main goal of the work is to develop a prototype of a microwave Doppler system for Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) purposes. Therefore it is necessary that the Doppler system satisfies the following requirements: non-expensive, easily integrated into industrial process, allows fast measurements. The Doppler system needs to include software for hardware control, measurements, and fast signal processing. The second main goal of the thesis is to establish and experimentally confirm possible practical applications of the Doppler system. The Doppler system consists of the following parts. The hardware part is designed in a way to ensure fast measurement and easy adjustment to the dfferent radar types. The software part of the system contains tools for: hardware control, data acquisition, signal processing and representing data to the user. In this work firstly a new type of 2D Doppler amplitude imaging was developed and formalized. Such a technique is used to derive information about the measured object from several angles of view. In the thesis special attention was paid to the frequency analysis of the measured signals as a means to improve spatial resolution of the radar. In the context of frequency analysis we present 2D Doppler frequency imaging and compare it with amplitude imaging. In the thesis the spatial resolution ability of CW radars is examined and improved. We show that the joint frequency and the amplitude signal processing allows to significantly increase the spatial resolution of the radar.