Sub-THz Radar sensing of the Environment for future Autonomous Marine platforms (STREAM)

该博士学位将补充3.5年的STREAM项目，这是圣安德鲁斯大学和伯明翰大学之间的150万英镑EPSRC资助的合作。STREAM旨在开发先进的亚太赫兹雷达系统，通过在动态海洋环境中提供态势感知和模糊条件，使海洋系统实现真正的自主性。相比之下，在海洋环境中自主作业的研究则不太成熟，但发展迅速。先进的电子设备将发挥关键作用，为船舶提供全面的智能，以促进具有上级传感和处理能力的自主操作，从而在动态海洋环境中为中小型船舶提供态势感知的传感能力的要求包括：（i）保持船舶和水中人畜的安全，这需要全天候的强大/夜间探测和水中物体的分类，以及（ii）自适应路径规划，这需要局部海面的波浪剖面和危险大浪的探测。我们断言，满足这些要求的关键传感器模态是在140-340 GHz频谱中工作的新型亚太赫兹雷达。亚太赫兹雷达提供了非常紧凑的传感器和穿透模糊条件的能力的非常高的分辨率感测的优点。这种雷达将能够测量海面和海面内物体的一系列参数，包括距离、横向距离、整体多普勒、微多普勒和雷达散射截面。这些信息可以被处理来检测，跟踪和分类场景中的物体，并为用于控制自主船舶的决策工具提供信息。在这个博士学位期间，候选人将与圣安德鲁斯海洋哺乳动物研究单位和伯明翰大学微波集成系统实验室（MISL）的同事组成的更广泛的研究团队密切合作，加上我们广泛的工业项目合作伙伴谁是支持该项目。该研究将重点放在现场收集的雷达数据在海上位置在英国周围的多次实地考察-目前有一个几乎完全缺乏数据的亚太赫兹属性的海洋环境，所以该项目的主要目的是收集广泛的数据集。基于这些数据集，研究任务将包括：亚太赫兹海杂波建模和分析海洋中物体（包括海洋哺乳动物）的散射建模和分析海洋边界层中大气传播效应的建模和分析开发用于检测和跟踪的信号处理算法开发图像分析和分类方法研究适合认知雷达操作的自适应波形设计

This PhD will complement the 3.5 year STREAM project, a £1.5M EPSRC funded collaboration between the University of St Andrews and the University of Birmingham. STREAM aims to develop advanced sub-THz radar systems that will enable true autonomy for marine systems, by providing situational awareness in a dynamic sea environment and obscuring conditionsResearch on autonomous ground vehicles, guided by various sensors (lidar, acoustic, radar), has existed for many decades and the technology is now relatively mature. In contrast, research in autonomous operation in the marine environment is less mature but evolving rapidly. The key enabler will be the role of advanced electronics to provide vessels with full intelligence to facilitate autonomous operation with sensing and processing capabilities superior to those of a human.The requirements for sensing capabilities to provide situational awareness to small and medium vessels in the dynamic marine environment include (i) maintaining safety of the boat and humans and animals in the water which requires the robust all-weather day/night detection and classification of objects in the water and (ii) adaptive path planning which requires wave profiling of the local sea surface and the detection of hazardous large waves. We assert that the key sensor modality to satisfy these requirements is novel sub-THz radar operating in the 140-340 GHz frequency spectrum. Sub-THz radar offers the advantages of a very high-resolution sensing with very compact sensors and the ability to penetrate obscuring conditions. Such radars will be able to measure a range of parameters from the sea surface and objects within it including range, cross-range, bulk Doppler, micro-Doppler and radar cross section (RCS). This information can then be processed to detect, track and classify objects in the scene and provide information to decision making tools used in the control of autonomous vessels.During this PhD the candidate will collaborate very closely with the wider research team of colleagues in the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews and in the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory (MISL) at the University of Birmingham, plus our broad range of industrial Project Partners who are supporting the project.The research will focus strongly on the field collection of radar data at maritime locations around the UK during multiple field trips - currently there is an almost complete lack of data on sub-THz properties of the marine environment so a primary aim of the project is to collect extensive data sets. Based on these data sets, research tasks will include: Modelling and analysis of sub-THz sea clutter Modelling and analysis scattering from objects in the sea including sea mammals Modelling and analysis of atmospheric propagation effects in the marine boundary layer Development of signal processing algorithms for detection & tracking Development of image analysis and classification methods Investigation of adaptive waveform design suitable for cognitive radar operation