Terahertz (THz) Radar: A Solution For Degraded Visibility Environments (DVE)

Operating at higher frequencies than other types of radar produces tighter beams and finer resolution.

Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama

An accurate view of the physical world is frequently vital. For example, rotary wing aircraft pilots must have knowledge of the terrain in order to safely fly their aircraft. Therefore, systems capable of generating images of the environment of sufficient quality to facilitate the decision process are necessary. The product of such a system is illustrated in Figure 1.

Radar systems are often employed to provide an accurate image; however, the performance of radar systems in a given environment is dependent upon the frequencies at which they operate. Since objects appear different when using different observation systems, development of new approaches for viewing the world would offer new information that could prove critical in situations where currently standard techniques are inadequate. One such situation occurs in Degraded Visual Environments (DVE), such as the brownout illustrated in Figure 2. In this type of situation, the observation system must be capable of overcoming the visual obscurants and providing high-resolution images of the environment in order to facilitate the decision process.