A Fully Integrated SiGe Radar Sensor for Aerosol Flow Rate Measurements

This letter introduces a bistatic W-band continuous wave radar sensor based on a silicon-germanium (SiGe) transceiver chip with respect to its ability to measure aerosol streams with particles in the micrometer range. The introduced homodyne SiGe sensor relies on a phase-locked loop (PLL)stabilized oscillator embedded into a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), while up until now particle stream monitoring radars are built as waveguide systems. After the radar hardware, including the bistatic antenna configuration, is examined, the physical relationships between the particle stream and the hardware parameters are given. Finally, two different experiments with coarse metallic steel particles and fine coffee powder streams are presented and analyzed.