Patent ID: 8325085

Claim:
A method of operating a magnetron based radar system having a gigahertz (GHz) transmission signal, comprising: mixing the transmission and return GHz signals with a GHz signal created by a digital high-stability stable local oscillator (STALO) to create intermediate frequency (IF) signals in the megahertz (MHz) range; digitising the IF signals using one or more fast analogue to digital converters; taking samples of the transmitter IF signal and feeding these samples into a high accuracy frequency estimation algorithm which, given the known demand to the STALO, calculates the actual transmitter frequency, being the sum of the STALO frequency demanded and the frequency of the transmitter burst IF; keeping both transmitted and received IF signals at a constant frequency by iterative digital control changes to the STALO signal using the output from the high accuracy frequency estimation algorithm; further downconverting the transmitted and received IF signals to baseband by use of a numerical oscillator to provide mixing signals, wherein the mixing signals are at the exact IF frequency of the transmitter signal, as calculated from the high accuracy frequency estimation algorithm, in order to precisely downconvert to baseband; calculating the phase values of the return signal from static targets using the baseband signal; over time, using the phase values and the accurately known transmitter frequencies to accurately calculate phase changes and hence calculate changes in the refractive index of the transmission medium.