A Portable Low-Power Harmonic Radar System and Conformal Tag for Insect Tracking

Author

Psychoudakis, Dimitris ; Moulder, William ; Chen, Chi-Chih ; Zhu, Heping ; Volakis, John L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH

Volume

7

fYear

2008

fDate

6/30/1905 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

444

Lastpage

447

Abstract

Harmonic radar systems provide an effective modality for tracking insect behavior. This letter presents a harmonic radar system proposed to track the migration of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). The system offers a unique combination of portability, low power and small tag design. It is comprised of a compact radar unit and a passive RF tag for mounting on the insect. The radar unit transmits a 5.96 GHz signal and detects at the 11.812 GHz band. A prototype of the radar unit was built and tested, and a new small tag was designed for the application. The new tag offers improved harmonic conversion efficiency and much smaller size as compared to previous harmonic radar systems for tracking insects. Unlike RFID detectors whose sensitivity allows detection up to a few meters, the developed radar can detect a tagged insect up to 58 m (190 ft).

Keywords

biological techniques; low-power electronics; radar detection; radar tracking; conformal tag; emerald ash borer; frequency 11.8 GHz to 12.0 GHz; frequency 5.9 GHz to 6.0 GHz; harmonic radar systems; insect behavior tracking; insect tracking; portable low-power harmonic radar system; Harmonic radar; insect tracking; radar; radio frequency identification (RFID);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1536-1225

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LAWP.2008.2004512

Filename

4601472