A Digital Radar System for Echo Studies On Ice Sheets

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Abstract
A digital radar system comprising multiple microprocessors, for use with 50 MHz radar units modified from the Scott Polar Research Institute Mark IV design, is described. The major features of the system include coherent integration of radar traces, storage of data in raw digitized form without demodulation, real-time play-back of digitized information, and high system performance resulting in good spatial sampling with integration even in airborne operations. Unfocused synthetic beam shaping also results from the integration of echoes, thus reducing clutter or incoherent scattering from the sides of the beam pattern along the profiling track. Examples of data collected during the austral summer of 1985–86 in the Antarctic on ice stream B, in both ground and airborne programs, illustrate both the flexibility in data presentation and features present in the records.