A two-dimensional radar simulator for level measurement of bulk material in silos

In this contribution, a two-dimensional radar simulator, which is used to determine the specifications and to predict the accuracy of a scanning radar system for filling volume measurement of bulk solids in silos, is presented. The simulator is based on a simple scattering model using polar coordinates in order to achieve an efficient implementation. Additionally, a detection algorithm based on a speckle filter has been tested for an exemplarily bulk solid scenario, and the influence of the penetration depth of the bulk solid, the antenna beam width, and the filling level on the measurement error has been analyzed.With a minimum signal to noise ratio of 10 dB, a measurement error smaller 2 m has been obtained for the given scenario.