A low-cost harmonic radar for tracking very small tagged amphibians

Author

Aumann, Herbert ; Kus, Evan ; Cline, Brian ; Emanetoglu, Nuri W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

6-9 May 2013

Firstpage

234

Lastpage

237

Abstract

A low-cost, hand-held harmonic radar is described for tracking tagged amphibians weighting less than a gram during a cryptic period of their life history. The radar is based on inexpensive, commercial 5.8 GHz wireless communications and 11.6 GHz satellite television technology. The performance of the system was accurately predicted from laboratory measurements by defining an appropriate harmonic tag conversion efficiency. The harmonic radar has a demonstrated maximum tag detection range of 20 ft. The best performance was achieved with an asymmetric, dielectric sleeved dipole with a 1:2 arm length ratio.

Keywords

biological techniques; radar applications; radar tracking; frequency 11.6 GHz; frequency 5.8 GHz; hand held harmonic radar; harmonic tag conversion efficiency; low cost harmonic radar; satellite television technology; tagged amphibian tracking; wireless communications; Harmonic analysis; Insects; Radar antennas; Radar tracking; Schottky diodes; Spaceborne radar;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), 2013 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Minneapolis, MN

ISSN

1091-5281

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-4621-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/I2MTC.2013.6555415

Filename

6555415