How A Radar Works and Its Application

Although invisible, radar is in use all around the world. Radar is usually used for the purpose of tracking storms, weapons, planes and for creating topographic maps (Marshall Brain, HOW RADAR WORKS, 2017).

How it works

Basically how radar works is it emits a beam of energy, called radio waves, from its antenna. As the waves strike an object in the atmosphere, the energy gets scattered in all directions with partial energy being reflected directly back to the radar. The larger the object, the greater the amount of energy returned to the radar. This provides us the ability to see objects, rain drops, planes etc. in the atmosphere. However, sometimes,RF shields may be used to protect certain objects from being detected.

Application of Radar

People making use of the radar are usually trying to accomplish one of the following three things:

Detecting the presence of an object at a distance

Radars can be used to detect moving objects or certain stationary objects which are buried underground. In certain cases radar may also be used to identify certain objects as well. For example: identifying the type of aircraft.

Detecting the speed of an object

This application of radar is mostly used by police in order to check if vehicles are adhering to their speed limit.

Mapping something

Synthetic Aperture Radar is used by space shuttles and orbiting satellites for the purpose of creating a detailed topographic map of the surface of moon and planets. Radar can therefore be used by the air traffic control, police, by military for detecting enemy and to guide weapons, by meteorologists to track the weather and in grocery stores for opening the door automatically. Radar basically makes use of radio frequency in the form of echo. Radio frequency is a form of wireless communication as opposed to communication via electric wires and is commonly used in radio communication or radar.

Apart from radar there are technologies which make use of radio frequencies such as telecommunication technologies, devices generating output in the form of audio, medical applications etc. For such technologies it is important for using the RF testing equipment. For the testing of mobile wireless devices and other such telecommunication devices, which may require covering of all cellular and WiFi frequency bands, one can make use of RF shielding enclosures for this purpose. RF Shield Box is usually useful for shielding from unnecessary transmissions of electromagnetic waves.