Experimental Analysis on Spatial Dynamics in Wide-Aperture 2-D HF Radars

Digital data collected from each element of a L-shaped wide-aperture HF radar aperture can be examined offline with various beamforming and direction finding algorithms to assess statistical characteristics of received signals. This paper examines data on radio sources propagating to the HF radar via refraction off the ionosphere. The variations of the spatial properties of radio sources are examined over several time intervals to establish the spatial dynamics of the radio sources due to their propagation path. Impact of those variations on spatial filtering and potential 2-D array architectures is discussed.