What is Impulse Radar?

An Impulse Radar is a device that can sense the distance to one or more remote objects by emitting and receiving very short pulses of electromagnetic energy.

The basic principle of a radar has been the same since the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century discovered that electromagnetic waves have the ability to reflect of surfaces. During the first part of the 20th century, systems capable of measuring the time it takes for a transmitted electromagnetic signal to travel between the antenna and the reflecting object was developed, and in 1940 the term radar, short for "Radio Detection And Ranging", was coined by the U.S. Navy.

Radar technology has progressed significantly since WWII, opening new and exciting application possibilities. Impulse Radars in particular takes advantage of the high speeds in modern integrated circuits and transmits extremely short electromagnetic pulses. The high bandwidth of these pulses gives them properties such as unique penetration abilities, very high accuracy and low emission levels.

The pulses used by the Novelda Impulse Radars are typically shorter than 1 nanosecond in duration, and their bandwidth spans over several GHz in the frequency domain. Different materials have different penetration properties, and the optimal bandwidth for a given application will depend on the material that needs to be penetrated. Novelda offers several different bandwidths, all between 1 and 10 GHz. Take a look at our products page for more details or use the contact form to request a datasheet!

See also this Google TechTalk YouTube video:

If you have problems viewing the video above, please get the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.