Radar Test Equipment

Ranatec AB has a long record in radar test equipment. Ranatec provides radar test equipment for surveillance radars, such which are often located in remote places and where the radar site is normally unmanned. Typical radar applications include surveillance of Airspace, Air Traffic Control, Weather Radar, Coastal and Harbour Surveillance. The radar wave lengths range from 3 to 25 cm with corresponding frequencies from 1 to 10 GHz.

Radar Technology

Radar has been of immense interest and use since its invention just before the World War. In recent years, radars have faced competion from alternative solutions, based on e g radio and satellite technologies. The radar, however, has one unique feature that competing technologies cannot match. The radar does not need a co-operating target or system to receive a signal that can tell something about the unknown. For a long time, we have been thinking that in the Air Traffic Control applications we can rely on co-operating targets. This is of course not the case in military applications. From terrible experiences, we know that we cannot trust every target moving in a controlled space to be co-operative. Therefore, surveillance radars are of utmost importance as the ultimate backup for identification of movements whatever other systems we may utilize, based on satellite and communication technology and co-operating objects. Another important radar application is the detection of the passive echo coming from radar reflections from rain and other similar precipitation.

Radar Monitoring System

Our business is to provide assistance in the audit of radars for the mentioned applications. By audit we mean; independent control of the radar performance and the automatic on-line calculation of a performance figure. The tools we offer through the radar monitoring system are radar output power measurement and receiver noise figure measurement. Our expertise with the radar monitoring system is to measure power, very high power from the transmitter and the lowest of power going into the receiver. The dynamic between the highest and lowest level of these types of power is tremendous (around 200 dB).

Radar Monitor

The measured performance figures are displayed through our radar monitor. The Ranatec Radar Performance Monitoring System consists of the RI 900 Radar Performance Monitor mainframe, an RF Head, a selection of Peak Power Sensors and Noise Sources, and a set of plug-in units, to match the selection of Power Detectors and Noise Sources. Learn more about the Ranatec RI 900 Radar Performance Monitor and system.