Washington: Vehicle tracking may soon cease
to be a tough task as an American defence research agency is
developing a radar system which will monitor vehicular
movement across a city using a few uncrewed aircraft.
The experimental vehicle tracking system, called
Multipath Exploitation Radar (MER), is being created by
Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), the New Scientist reported.
With the use of the new radar system, DARPA is hoping to
track vehicles across an entire city using just a few uncrewed
aircraft as it could see around corners and down into "urban
canyons".
Unlike traditional radar that relies on direct line of
sight and fails to track a vehicle that keeps nipping behind
buildings, the MER, by using buildings as mirrors, will
identify a target vehicle from radar reflections.
"MER is expected to be compatible with the radar
systems currently used to track vehicles," a DARPA spokesman
said.
"Reflected radar will cover more ground than a
line-of-sight system, making it possible to monitor a city of
about 1000 sq km, such as Baghdad, with just three
airborne radars," the spokesman said.
According to the researchers, "MER makes use of Ku-band
radar - frequencies of between 12 and 18 gigahertz and it is
sensitive enough to produce distinct signatures for apparently
similar vehicles, by detecting slight differences, such as the
angle of an aerial or a wing mirror".
The agency is also planning to develop an algorithm
which would enable the system to track multiple vehicles.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, March 20, 2010, 18:30