Researchers of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS) have developed a new method for modeling a radio signal that will increase the efficiency of sounding the earth's surface. The development can be used to improve the accuracy of radar and satellite systems for exploring territories operating in the radio wave range.
Remote sensing of the Earth's surface is performed by various ground-based (stationary radar systems), aviation (drones) and space means (satellites). Such systems are used to solve a variety of tasks: in agriculture, geodesy, mapping, monitoring of the Earth's surface, ocean, atmospheric layers, as well as in the exploration of natural resources.
Earth's surface sensing is often executed through recording radio waves reflections. Such signals propagate differently close to the Earth's surface, say, depending on weather conditions and terrain features they can spread over several meters and hundreds kilometers. Therefore, at developing and operating wireless networks and radars, it is critically important to clearly understand where the signal can and cannot penetrate.
“Our research deals with computer modeling of the radio waves propagation in the nonhomogeneities of the lower atmosphere. And in this regard we have proposed a new effective method that allowed for an accurate simulating one of the main factors affecting the radio waves propagation - arbitrary dielectric permittivity,” says Mikhail Lytaev, Senior Researcher of the Laboratory of Applied Informatics and Problems of the Society Informatization at SPC RAS.
Dielectric permittivity is a parameter (coefficient) in a mathematical model that theoretically describes the patterns of radio signals’ propagation. However, to simulate processes in real environment, scientists of SPC RAS faced a necessity to develop new numerical methods and describe conditions for modeling an arbitrary permittivity of the Earth's surface.
“We managed to show that the proposed method allows for productivity increasing and extends the boundaries of the application of software systems for radio planning and remote sensing of the Earth. The method can be used at the development and application primarily of ground-based radars and aerial sensing systems that operate in the radio wave range. Besides, we have succeeded in reducing the overspending of computing resources while modeling,” Mikhail Lytaev added.
The research results were presented at the IEEE Radar Conference 2022 that highlights the latest accomplishments in radar technologies and their applications. The conference was held from March 21-25 in New - York and included an online format. Moreover, the project is supported by a Research Grant provided by the Russian Science Foundation (No. 21-71-00039 for 2021-2023).