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2008
Conference Paper
Title
Millimeterwave Propagation through Dust
Abstract
It is well known that radar sensors are capable to propagate through smoke and dust with only very little attenuation. The higher the operating frequency, the smaller is the necessary antenna diameter for a required geometrical resolution on the ground. Consequently millimeter waves would be the choice for this type of sensor system. For an optimum system design the question of atmospheric attenuation at different bands within the millimeter wave region due to losses by dust and sand has to be answered. As only little data exist on this topic, respective measurements were done under reproducible laboratory conditions. Different approaches were used to cover a broad range of sand and dust types. The contribution describes the experimental set-ups and gives typical results for calibrated samples of sand and dust, which were derived from the lab measurements. A perspective is given for further investigations upon this topic.