A team from MIT Lincoln Laboratory has built and demonstrated the wideband selective propagation radar (WiSPR), a system capable of seeing out various distances at millimeter-wave (mmWave or MMW) frequencies. Typically, these high frequencies, which range from 30 to 300 gigahertz (GHz), are employed for only short-range operations. Using transmit-and-receive electronically scanned arrays of many antenna elements each, WiSPR produces narrow beams capable of quickly scanning around an area to detect objects of interest. The narrow beams can also be manipulated into broader beams for communications.
"Building a system with sufficient sensitivity to operate over long distances at these frequencies for radar and communications functions is challenging," says Greg Lyons, a senior staff member in the Airborne Radar Systems and Techniques Group , part of Lincoln Laboratory's ISR Systems and Technology R&D area. "We have many radar experts in our group, and we all debated whether such a system was even feasible. Much innovation is happening in the commercial sector, and we leveraged those advances to develop this multifunctional system."
