Effects of Waves on Society and the Environment

Radar:
What is a radar?
Radar= Radio Detection and Ranging
A radar is a system for detecting the presence, direction, distance, and speed of aircraft, ships,
and other objects, by sending out pulses of high-frequency electromagnetic waves that are
reflected off the object back to the source. This concept is similar to hearing an echo.
Radars in their basic form have four main components:

A transmitter, which creates the energy pulse.

A transmit/receive switch that tells the antenna when to transmit and when to receive the
pulses.

An antenna to send these pulses out into the atmosphere and receive the reflected pulse
back.

A receiver, which detects, amplifies and transforms the received signals into video
format.

Detailed description of the waves involved (type, frequency, speed, etc)

The radio waves used by radar are produced by a piece of equipment called a magnetron.
Radio waves are similar to light waves: they travel at the same speedbut their waves
are much longer and have much lower frequencies.

 Light waves have wavelengths of about 500 nanometers (500 billionths of a meter, which
is about 100200 times thinner than a human hair), whereas the radio waves used by
radar typically range from about a few centimeters to a meterthe length of a finger to
the length of your armor roughly a million times longer than light waves. Radio waves
have frequencies as high as 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz,
Both light and radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which means they're
made up of fluctuating patterns of electrical and magnetic energy. Also since radio waves
are found on the spectrum, they travel at the speed of light which is (3x108 m/s).
The waves a magnetron produces are actually microwaves, similar to the ones generated
by a microwave oven. The difference is that the magnetron in a radar has to send the
waves many miles, instead of just a few inches, so it is much larger and more powerful.
Explanation of how the wave and structure interact

Once the radio waves have been generated, an antenna, working as a transmitter, hurls
them into the air in front of it.
The antenna is usually curved so it focuses the waves into a precise, narrow beam, but
radar antennas also typically rotate so they can detect movements over a large area.
The radio waves travel outward from the antenna at the speed of light (186,000 miles or
300,000 km per second) and keep going until they hit something.
Then some of them bounce back toward the antenna in a beam of reflected radio waves
also traveling at the speed of light.
The speed of the waves is crucially important. If an enemy jet plane is approaching at
over 3,000 km/h (2,000 mph), the radar beam needs to travel much faster than this to
reach the plane, return to the transmitter, and trigger the alarm in time.
Any reflected radio waves picked up by the antenna are directed into a piece of electronic
equipment that processes and displays them in a meaningful form on a television-like
screen, watched all the time by a human operator.
The receiving equipment filters out useless reflections from the ground, buildings, and so
on, displaying only significant reflections on the screen itself.

Mathematical Explanation

Radar systems usually use wavelengths of 10 cm and a corresponding frequency of about

3 GHz
The Range is accomplished by the timing delay between transmissions of a pulse of radio
energy
Time delay is represented as Dt
Range can be determined by using the formula R=cDt/2
c represents the speed of light which all electromagnetic waves travel at
The factor of 2 represents that the radar pulse must travel to the target and back before
detection, or twice its range
This formula is for a pulse radar system

Radars: Their effect on society and the environment

People who have worked routinely around radars have expressed concerns on long term
adverse effects
Invented some 60 years ago radar systems have been widely used for navigation,
aviation, national defence, and weather forecasting
Such as cancer, reproductive malfunction, cataracts and changes in behaviour or
development of children
This is due to the EMF emissions
Radars generate RF fields which are known to interact differently with the human body
RF fields below 10 GHz penetrate exposed tissues and produce heating due to energy
absorption
Can result in lens opacities due to the rise in bodily temperatures
Identification and tracking of storm systems (doplar radar)

Allowing meteorologists to predict large storms and prepare for such an event
Better navigation for airplanes reducing crashes
Help police keep roads safe using radar speed guns
Also has helped to study space and trace solar flares
Also used in military defense
Even though long term exposure to Radars have been linked to cancer and cataracts the
invention has led to many scientific advancements.

The radar has had a very positive effect on society through everyday tasks such as day to
day weather and even larger applications such as national defense and severe weather
warnings