ScÜRad - a radar system for perimeter protection of critical infrastructure

The perimeter protection of critical infrastructure is a very important concern of governments, the military and the industry. Many commercial-, government- and military facilities have to be monitored in all weather conditions and light independent with modern sensors to protect against unauthorized persons and dangerous objects, for example an intruder with an explosive vest. This lecture describes an easy to use mmw-radar combined with an optical camera, which can be used as a perimeter security system to monitor military checkpoints and camps, security and border areas, airfields or airport ramp and commercial-, government- and military facilities. It was designed by the Fraunhofer Institute FHR in Wachtberg. The radar system works with FMCW-chirps in the W-band with a very low transmit power of 100 mW. The advantage of the chosen frequency is a very short wavelength wherefore very small structures and structural changes can be verified. The phase noise of the system is very low, because of the use of a DDS-chip in combination with a high performance local oscillator for the signal generation and the use of a very low noise amplifier and receiver designed by the Fraunhofer Institute IAF in Freiburg. Because of the very low mechanical weight and size of the radar front end it is possible to rotate the whole front end 8 times per seconds. With every rotation of the radar an image of the optical camera will be generated. The result is that in every second 8 two dimensional radar representations of the measurement area with 20 cm range resolution together with 8 images of an optical camera are transferred via network connections to a control point. The further signal processing of the data sets of the two sensors implemented on a notebook can analyze the two dimensional radar data in respect of change detection, RCS-analysis and target detection and tracking and combine the results with the data of the optical camera for an easy to understand data visualization. Finally, with that sensor system it is possible to detect and track unauthorized persons and objects in the monitored area in safe distances and analyze the targets for possible threats.