© РИА Томск. Павел Стефанский
TOMSK, January 9 – RIA Tomsk. Scientists of Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR) create radar prototype for monitoring of Earth's
surface at bad weather and weak lighting in 2017; device can be used for
searches of fragments of crashed planes or in tracking of crops, head of TUSUR
student's design office "Svyaz" Andrey Geltser reported.
"UAVs are used now for remote monitoring and observation, on which the
optical or infrared cameras are installed. But these cameras work not really
well in case of precipitates, smoke. It is possible to receive the image in the
radar range by means of our radar. The radar "highlights" the land
surface therefore time of day or weather conditions are unimportant to
it", – he told.
Geltser emphasized that the radar can be used for search of metal objects
or buildings as they reflect a wireless signal well, and these objects can not
always be seen on the images received by means of optical cameras. For example,
the instrument could help to find Il-76 quicker, which broke in July of this
year, extinguishing the fires in the Irkutsk region. Its searches were
decelerated because of poor visibility and the smog on the place of ruin.
© РИА Томск. Павел Стефанский
The radar will consist of the printed circuit board, which is the antenna,
the transceiver and the block of processing. Antenna length is 25-30
centimeters, the gross weight of the radar won't exceed 1,5 kilograms. Analogs
of this device usually have big dimensions and weight.
The developers already created separate elements and the software for the
device. They plan to assemble the prototype and to test it in actual practice –
by means of the UAV in 2017. It is marked that the device can be used also in
agriculture for determination of humidity of soils and volume of biomass in one
of options.
"There is direct link between the sizes of an antenna and quality of
an image in a radar-location – the bigger the antenna, the "picture"
is better, – Geltser noted. – Record of signals throughout sites of flight and
their special processing will give us such result as though we did shooting not
with a small antenna, but with a big one, up to tens meters in size. Quality of
the image will be much better respectively".