The Radar Museum
From Hülsmeyer's 1904 Telemobiloskop to today's 4D imaging radar — how humans learned to see in the dark, through the clouds, and past the horizon.
Plan Position Indicator
A rotating antenna sweeps a beam outward; targets paint as blips with persistence. Four operating modes (air search / weather / marine / ATC) with the era-accurate sweep rates each was designed for.
The Collection
37 radar systems across 120 years — from WW2 cavity magnetrons to automotive imaging radars. Click any card to copy its description.
No artifacts in this category.
From Hertz to 4D Imaging
Milestones from 1886 (Hertz's reflection experiments) to 2023 (4D imaging radar in cars).
Hands-on Instruments
Trade pulse-repetition frequency against unambiguous range, compute Doppler shifts from target velocity, and watch the radar equation's R⁴ falloff dictate every design choice.
Two fundamentals: how often you can pulse (PRF) sets your maximum unambiguous range; how long each pulse lasts (τ) sets your range resolution and minimum range.
The radar return from a moving target shifts in frequency. Twice the geometry (out and back) gives fd = 2·v·fc / c. Pulse-Doppler processors use this shift to filter out stationary clutter.
The fundamental trade-off: received power Pr drops as R⁴, not the R² of a one-way radio link. Doubling your detection range costs 16× the transmit power.