Master Project

Student: Raphael Wicki
Supervisor: Silvan Leinss
Time period: 2018

In this master project we investigated the robustness of radar reflectors against various environmental influences. The radar reflectors were developed at ETH Zürich by Silvan Leinss together with the technician Cornelius Senn with the aim to produce relatively cheap and highly portable radar reflectors to support radar field experiments. In the field radar reflectors are exposed to sometimes extreme weather conditions and the reflecting panels can be covered by rain, dust, snow or vegetation. During improper transport and installation the panels can suffer from scratches and deformation which could also be caused by heavy wind load. Tho analyze all these effects, we measured the reduction of the radar cross section (RCS) under these influences by using the Polarimetric Gamma Portable Radar Interferometer (GPRI) which operates at Ku-band. We found that deformation of the panel by 2 cm, coverage by aluminum chipping and tree leaves can reduce the RCS by up to 10 dB. Coverage by up to 8 layers of plastic sheets for protection against weather reduced the backscatter by less than 1 dB. The RCS dependence on azimuth alignment and rotation around the symmetry axes agreed within 0.5 dB with simulations.