IET Science, Measurement & Technology

Research Article

Extraction of Doppler signature of micro-to- ISSN 1751-8822

Received on 12th October 2018
Revised 21st November 2019
macro rotations/motions using continuous Accepted on 9th March 2020
doi: 10.1049/iet-smt.2018.5563
wave radar-assisted measurement system www.ietdl.org

Harish C. Kumawat1, Arockia Bazil Raj1

1Electronics Engineering, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune, India
E-mail: brazilraj.a@diat.ac.in

Abstract: Mechanical–structural vibration and/or rotational parts of the targets will induce micro-Doppler frequency in addition to
the main Doppler components. In the today's military era, detections, measurements and decision making have to be made after
the thorough analysis of main and micro-Doppler signatures of the targets to get their full profile particularly for defence
applications. In addition, few of the low radar cross-section targets can be detected only by extracting and processing the micro-
Doppler signatures corresponding to the rotations of their propellant rotor blades. Therefore, experimental studies to measure
the micro-to-macro rotation/motion generated Doppler frequency and performing its associated measurements become
significant. The authors built a C-band (5.3 GHz) continuous wave radar and used it to measure the Doppler frequency
generated by micro-to-macro rotations/motions. The detection and measurement accuracy of the developed radar is assessed
by series of different open-environment experimental case studies: revolution per minute measurement of rotating blades,
separation of multiple rotating blades, oscillation per minute measurement of a swinging pendulum, detection of approaching/
receding motion and the Doppler signature extraction of walking/jogging/cycling person. All these measurement values are
validated against the standard master instrument readings and theoretical calculations. Finally, the limitations of this system and
required near-future research works to enhance its performance are listed.

1 Introduction hand/leg/head movements of walking/jogging person and leg/pedal

Radar is an electromagnetic wave-assisted object (target) detection
system that uses RF wave to determine target range, angle and
Q1 velocity [1]. Basically, radars can be operated in the principle of
monostatic or bistatic with the technology of continuous wave
(CW), pulse wave, frequency/phase-modulated wave etc. [2, 3].
Monostatic radar involves a single antenna to transmit (Tx)/receive
(Rx), whereas bistatic radar involves two antennas. Pulse radar
requires relatively high-power pulse than the CW radar for a given
range, for example to have an average power of 33.01 dBm in a
CW radar, the maximum power of the radar has to be 36.02 dBm,
whereas in pulse radar, having 5 μs pulse width and 5 ms pulse
repetition time, the maximum power of the radar has to be 63.01  detection. When we also look for the micro-Doppler component,
dBm. In addition, the design of pulsed radar and its associated
signal processing algorithms, particularly for Doppler frequency
extraction/processing, are slightly complicated [2, 4]. The CW
radar with/without modulation has a very broad area of
applications such as traffic control, micro-to-macro motion/rotation
measurement, revolution per minute (RPM) measurement,
pendulum oscillation per minute (OPM) measurement, velocity
measurement, weather monitoring, biomedical imaging, person
monitoring/recognition, synthetic aperture radar (SAR)/inverse
SAR imaging, ground penetration, through-wall imaging, foliage
(foliage target) imaging, detection of approaching/receding motion
etc. [5–7]. The prime advantages of CW radar-assisted
measurements over other conventional measurement systems are
(i) no physical contact to target, (ii) low power and simple
circuitry, (iii) no fine line-of-sight (LoS) alignment to target, (iv)
capability of micro-to-macro motion sensing and (v) continuous
motion/movement monitoring etc.; thus, the CW radars are more
commonly being used in a wide spectrum of civil and military
applications.
Mechanical vibration in the target and structural rotation of
target's body parts will induce additional frequency modulation on
the radar echo signal, called the micro-Doppler effect that
generates sidebands around the target's main Doppler frequency
called the micro-Doppler frequency [8, 9]. In general, the micro
motions/rotations of the targets, like the rotation of rotor's blades,
oscillation of the pendulum, wings flapping of the robotic spy bird,
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movements of a cycling person, modulate the RF signal that falls
on it and this modulation gets superimposed on the main Doppler;
and therefore the echo signal consists of two components:
primarily the main Doppler generated by target's whole-body
motion and secondary micro-Doppler generated by micro motions/
rotations of the target [10–12]. Few such aerial targets are drones,
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and quadcopter/mini-helicopter
etc., which have rotating blades for their propulsion that generate
micro-Doppler and they have the capability of steadily flying at a
point. Furthermore, when we look only for the main Doppler
component, a steadily flying target (with zero motion) will give
velocity of 0 m/s and we do not get any signature other than the
we get signature about micro-motion of the platform and micro-
rotation of blades so as to precisely extract the signature of the
same targets [13, 14]. For the identification and classification of
such targets, one should extract and utilise different Doppler
features of the target.
Several model designs and simulation studies have been carried
out by the researchers worldwide in this field in the recent years for
generating the Doppler profile of human walk, cycling person,
blade rotations of helicopter/UAV/drones, rotation of wind-turbine
etc. [15–17]. Nowadays, the experimental researches have been
started to verify and validate the radar designs and signal
processing algorithms for the extraction of Doppler components of
micro-to-macro motion/rotation and the study of full behavioural
profile of the targets. By carefully processing and extracting the
Doppler profile from the radar signal, it is possible to measure
several parameters corresponding to the target's whole body and its
parts motions/rotations [18, 19]. Therefore, developing a radar
system with the capability of measuring these Doppler components
becomes significant, which is the main contribution in this paper.
In this work, a cost-effective C-band CW radar is designed and
used to extract the micro-Doppler signatures generated by micro-
to-macro rotations/motions of the target. To perform these tasks,
different types of targets i.e. rotating double/ triple blades, walking/
jogging/cycling person, oscillating pendulum and approaching/
receding motion target are operated in front of the radar in an open
1
environment. The extracted Doppler signatures are subsequently
processed to have important measurements on the target. The
accuracy and stability of these measurements are validated against
the standard instrument readings and theoretical estimations. The
measurements conducted, based on the Doppler signature, in this
work are (i) RPM measurement of rotating blades, (ii) separation of
multiple rotating targets, (iii) pendulum OPM measurement, (iv)
detection of approaching/receding motion and (v) micro-Doppler
extraction of walking/jogging/cycling person. The rest of this paper
is organised as follows: Section 2 details the background concepts
associated with this work, Section 3 briefs the related works based
on the recent literatures, Section 4 describes the developed radar
test bed and Section 5 presents the analyses of experimental results.
2 Background concepts
Several basic concepts related to the CW radar design, operation
and measurements using them can be found in [2, 20, 21]. Short
descriptions on a few background concepts related to this work are
given in this section. First, in an RF mixer, the phenomenon of
mixing of two signals is just as the multiplication of samples of
two time-domain signals [2, 22]. Let us assume two sinusoidal
(radar transmitting and receiving) signals as
x1 t = A1 sin 2π f 1t + θ1 and x2 t = A2sin 2π f 2t + θ2 (1)
where x1(t) and x2(t) represent the two different time-domain
signals of amplitudes A1 and A2, frequencies f1 and f2, phases θ1
and θ2, respectively, and t is the real time. Then, the output signal
x(t) of the RF mixer is given by
x t = 0.5 A1 A2 cos 2π f 1 − f 2 t + θ1 − θ2 − cos
2π f 1 + f 2 t + θ1 + θ2 (2)
Equation (2) shows that there are two frequency components: low
frequency (f1−f2) and a high frequency (f1 + f2), two-phase
components: (θ1−θ2) and (θ1 + θ2) and amplitude: 0.5A1A2.
Practically, a few more order of the harmonics will also be
generated by the mixer while mixing two signals [2, 23]. Based on
the application of interest, we need to select either low frequency
(f1−f2) or high frequency (f1 + f2) by passing x(t) into an appropriate
filter. In case a low-pass filter is used, the second term in (2) is
rejected and then it becomes as
x t = 0.5 A1 A2 cos 2π f 1 − f 2 t + θ1 − θ2 (3)
Assume that both the frequency (Tx and Rx) components are at the
same value i.e. (f1 = f2 for a static target), then, (3) becomes only
the ‘cos’ function of phase difference i.e. cos(θ1−θ2). The θ1 is
normally 0° since it is corresponding to phase of the radar
transmitting signal; thus, the x(t) becomes only the ‘cos’ function
of θ2 i.e. cos(θ2), which shows that the value of (3) depends on the
target's range. As long as the range is constant (static target), the
value of (3) is also constant. In the case of moving or rotational
target, the range gets varied over time and it leads to the phase
changes in accordance with the vibrations/rotations/motions. This
phase change over the time generates frequency [2] called the
micro-Doppler frequency (fd) [19, 20]. In this work, the rate of
change of range due to vibrations/rotations/motions of target and/or
its parts along the radial direction can be taken as radial velocity
(vr) of the target and it can be measured based on the fd as [1, 2]
f dλ f dc
vr = = (4)
2 2f
where c is the speed of the electromagnetic signal, λ is the radar
wavelength and f is the radar frequency. If there is an angle (θ)
between radar LoS and rotation/vibration/motion vector of the
target, then (4) becomes as [1, 9]
2 IET Sci. Meas. Technol.
cfd f dλ
vθ = cos θ = cos θ (5)
2f 2
When the micro-Doppler is generated by a rotating structure i.e.
rotating blades, the RPM of that rotating blade can be estimated by
[24]
fd
RPM = × 60, N = 2, 3, 4… (6)
N
where N is the number of blades in the rotating structure. Typically,
N is 2 for drone/UAV/quadcopter propeller and it varies from 2 to 6
for helicopters of different radar cross-section (RCS) and payload
capacity [13, 14, 25]. More than one rotating target or a target
having multiple rotating parts can be distinguished based on the
micro-Doppler frequency and range profiles generated by them
[13, 26, 27]. Whole body and parts of a walking/jogging/cycling
person can be distinguished by carefully analysing the micro-
Doppler spectral signatures [21, 28]. The developed CW radar
could also be used to measure the OPM of a swinging pendulum.
The rate of oscillation of a simple pendulum depends upon its
length and not the mass of bob or amplitude [29]. The theoretical
pendulum oscillation time period (T) and OPM can be estimated by
l 60
T = 2π and OPM = (7)
g T
where l is the length of the pendulum rope and g is the gravitational
acceleration (9.8 m/s2). Of course, the Doppler frequency profile
generated by the swinging pendulum will die-down for every cycle
over time. The OPM and T are obtained using this radar as
N 60
OPM = and T = (8)
2 OPM
where N is the number of Doppler peaks obtained on the
spectrogram plot within a minute. The value of N is automatically
calculated using the spectrogram peak detection algorithm
presented in [30] so as to have the automatic measurement of OPM
and T.
All these radar measurement values are validated against the
standard laser tachometer (DT-2234C) measurement readings or
theoretical estimations. The measurement deviation errors in per
cent are calculated as [31]
Measured/theoretical value − Radar value
Error in % =
Measured/theoretical value
(9)
× 100
The root mean square error (RMSE) of measured/theoretical and
radar values is calculated by [32]
n 2
∑i = 1 Mi − Ri (10)
RMSE =
n
where n is the measured value sample length, and Mi and Ri are
standard instrument/theoretical readings and radar measurement
values, respectively.
3 Background and related works
Several applications are coming up with the CW or pulse radar due
to various advantages of one over the other. Few of the surveys
more relevant to our work are reviewed in this section. Misans and
Terauds [5] developed a CW radar of K-band to measure the speed
of a land vehicle using zero-crossing and least-square method.
Ding et al. [8] have proposed an approach with the combination of
linear predictive coding and Hough transform to obtain the human-
walking micro-Doppler profile using the commercial CW radar of
2.4 GHz. Fei et al. [10] developed models to generate the Doppler
components corresponding to human gaits. Kim et al. [11]
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
 Fig. 1  Photograph of developed CW radar (5.3 GHz) while in field trails
Fig. 2  Schematic illustrating the main sections of developed CW radar
designed a Doppler radar of 7.25 GHz to obtain the spectrogram
corresponding to the physical movements of walking man, dog,
cycling man and vehicle. Gurbu et al. [15] presented CW radar of
10 GHz and pulsed radar of 5.8 GHz systems to recognise home-
aided and unaided walking profile of a person using his micro-
Doppler signatures. Jose-Maria et al. developed a short-range
Q2 prototype C-band and K-band Doppler radar to measure the
rotation rate of the wind turbine. Micro-Doppler signature
generated by the turbine rotations is used to analyse its functional
profile [16]. Chenchen et al. analysed the Doppler profile
Q3 corresponding to vertical axis rotation of a 1.5 m tall wind-turbine
model. The anechoic chamber experimental results are compared
with the results of the horizontal rotation of another three-blade
turbine model [17]. Narayanan and Zenaldin [18] designed a C-
band Doppler radar and used it to detect the micro-Doppler profile
of a human behind a cinderblock wall.
Singh and Kim [20] developed a Doppler radar of W-band to
have an indoor measurement of the rotation rate of the blade of
double/quad rotors. Wang et al. developed CW and pulse Doppler
radar of 3 GHz (S-band) for human sensing applications. The
authors examined the sensing of the developed radar with riding
exercise bike and walking person targets [21].
Singh and Kim [27] developed micro-Doppler radar to get the
Doppler signature of the oscillating pendulum and walking person.
Karabacak et al. used the micro-Doppler signature to classify
pedestrians from animals. The experiments and data collections are
done with commercial radar of 77 GHz [28]. In lieu of the above
on-going research works, building a CW radar with the capability
to measure the micro-to-macro motion/rotation generated Doppler
signatures, velocity, RPM, pendulum oscillation period/OPM of
low RCS targets become significant which is the main contribution
in the work reported in subsequent sections.
4 Design of CW radar and its descriptions
A C-band CW radar is developed, with required RF subsystems,
data acquisition circuit and signal processing algorithm at the radar
system design laboratory of our institute.
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This CW radar is used to measure the Doppler frequencies that
are corresponding to micro-to-macro motions/rotations, walking/
jogging person, cycling person, oscillating pendulum and
approaching/receding motion. The photograph of developed radar
taken during the field trial is shown in Fig. 1 and it consists of RF
signal generator (i), antenna Tx/Rx assembly (ii), RF subsystem
and signal acquisition assembly (iii), digital storage oscilloscope
(iv), DC power sources (v) and radar display (vi) as marked. The
Tx/Rx antennas are mounted one over another with 15 cm gap (to
reduce the mutual RF coupling) on a wooden stool. Targets are
operated in front of the radar during field trials i.e. in an open
outdoor environment.
The main sections of developed CW radar are (i) RF system
assembly, (ii) radar signal acquisition and (iii) extraction of
Doppler signatures.
The RF section of developed low-power and short-range CW
radar consists of RF source, amplifier, power splitter, up-mixer,
baseband signal generator, power amplifier and Tx rectangular
microstrip antenna (RMSA) at the transmitter chain and Rx
RMSA, low noise amplifier (LNA) and down-mixer at the receiver
chain as shown in Fig. 2. Radar main subsystems and their
specifications are given in Table 1. The radar frequency (f1) and
transmitted power chosen in this design are 5.3 GHz (C-band) and
0 dBm, respectively. The local oscillator (LO) port of Tx-mixer is
terminated with 50 Ω load for the time being and used later. The
transmitting antenna is a narrow-band rectangular 4 × 1 array with
3 dB beamwidth of 23° and 22° for E and H planes, respectively.
The receiving antenna is identical to the transmitting one. Due to
the signal round-trip-journey and RCS of the target, the received
signal strength is very low and this weak echo signal is amplified,
without degrading the signal-to-noise ratio, by a suitable LNA. The
received RF signal whose frequency falls within the bandwidth of
LNA only gets amplified and comes out. After amplification, the
echo signal is provided to the down-mixer that gets another signal
from the power splitter as shown in Fig. 2.
The signal tapped from the power splitter acts as a reference
signal and it gets superheterodyned with the received RF signal, as
per (1)–(3), to get the baseband signal and/or determine the
3
Table 1 Radar sub-systems and their main specifications
S.No. Sub-systems
1 RF source
2 RF amplifier
3 power splitter
4 baseband signal generator
5 mixer
6 Tx/Rx RMSA
7 LNA
8 ADC
Fig. 3  Distinguishing the approaching/receding motion target using
frequency shifting method
Doppler frequency (fd). The received radar signal is applied into a
data acquisition system which is designed with a baseband filter
and amplifier (LM358), bipolar analogue to digital converter
(ADC) [33] and digital circuit built in a field programmable gate
array as shown in Fig. 2. More details on the digital designs/
interface protocols/simulations techniques and radar signal
logging/ analysis/measurement computations in a MATLAB
environment can be found in our previous publications [34–39].
The received radar signal (DC through 2 kHz in this work) is
applied to a PC i.e. to a MATLAB environment, as detailed in [23,
35, 39], where all the signal processing algorithms related to the
noise cancellation, real-time plot handling, data recording and
measurements reported in this paper are carried out. Further, the
CW radar cannot be directly used to find the approaching/receding
motion target [2, 38, 39].
When using the received power (Pr) as a measurement variable
to find the approaching/receding motion target, the Pr depends on
the impact of clutters, environmental changes and RCS fluctuations
of the target over its travel range [1, 2, 39]. Thus, this measurement
method is not a reliable one to find the approaching/receding
motion target particularly in open environment. Thus, the only
measurement variable left out in CW radar to find the approaching/
receding motion of the target is Doppler frequency. In this work,
the radar frequency i.e. f1 is 5.3 GHz, suppose the fd is  +0.5 or
−0.5 kHz due to approaching or receding motion of the target, then
the received signal frequency (fr) is (f1 + fd) or (f1−fd) which is
4 IET Sci. Meas. Technol.
Main specifications
bandwidth: 9 kHz–13 GHz
power: 0 dBm (CW signal)
frequency (f1): 5.3 GHz (C-band)
bandwidth: 0.05–6 GHz
gain: 21 dB
isolation: 16–28 dB; splitting: 3 dB
max power input: 1.5 W
bandwidth: 1 µHz–100 MHz
frequency (f2): 1 kHz
amplitude: 50 mVpp
LO-IF isolation: 10–23 dB
LO-RF isolation: 11–25 dB
conversion loss: 8.5 dB
bandwidth: 5.26–5.34 GHz
gain: 6.5 dBi
noise figure: 1.9–3.0 dB
gain: 22–24 dB
resolution: 12 bit (parallel out)
analogue channels: 8 (Muxcore:FQ0424)
sampling rate: 0.1 Msps
ADC core: AD1674
equal to 5,300,000,500 or 5,299,999,500 Hz, respectively. This
frequency gets superheterodyned with the f1 i.e. 5.3 GHz at the
down-mixer as shown in Fig. 2, then the output of baseband
amplifier is the baseband frequency i.e. in this example 0.5 kHz
[38, 39] in both cases, which is actually fd due to approaching or
receding motion of the target. Therefore, distinguishing the
approaching and receding target in the CW radar configuration
using the Doppler frequency is impossible and this limitation
invites some other technique to find the approaching/receding
motion of the target. One technique available in the literature to
find the approaching/receding motion of the target in CW radar is
in-phase (I) and quadrature-phase (Q) signal generation [2, 21, 22].
In this method, huge computations have to be performed to (i)
down-convert the received signal to IF level, (ii) mix with the
‘sine’ and ‘cosine’ reference signals and (iii) filter the high-
frequency components in the both (I and Q) channels to generate
the I(t) and Q(t) [2, 21] signals, to find the approaching/receding
motion target. In order to avoid these huge complex computations
while finding the approaching/receding motion target, a simple
frequency shifting algorithm is used in this work. In this CW radar,
the aimed target maximum radial velocity is 28.30 m/s and its
corresponding radial Doppler frequency is 1 kHz. Therefore,
instead of transmitting only the radar signal i.e. f1, we have chosen
a baseband signal (f2) at 1 kHz and (f1 + f2) i.e. 5,300,001,000 Hz is
transmitted as shown in Fig. 3. This RF signal falls on the target
and comes back to the receiving antenna with or without Doppler
component as [(f1 + f2) ± fd] or (f1 + f2), respectively. This echo
signal is made to mix with the radar signal i.e. f1 and hence, after
mixing, the baseband filter output varies only between 0 Hz and 2 
kHz i.e. 0 Hz and (f2 + max(fd)). This signal goes into the baseband
amplifier to improve the signal strength. In fact, the baseband filter
and amplifier are designed for the bandwidth of 0–2 kHz in this
work [39]. The frequency of baseband amplifier will be 0 Hz when
the target recedes the radar at the Doppler frequency of 1 kHz
(negative Doppler), 1 kHz when the target is static i.e. fd = 0 Hz
and 2 kHz when the target is approaching radar at the Doppler
frequency of 1 kHz (positive Doppler). Thus, in this frequency
shifting method, the actual Doppler frequency variations from −1
to +1 kHz are linearly shifted into 0 Hz–2 kHz and the
approaching/receding motion target is found just with only FFT
operation/function.
Q4
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Q12 Fig. 4  Targets operated in front of the radar to validate its Doppler signature extraction accuracy and stability
Fig. 5  Picture of outdoor experimental setup with
Q13 (a) Double rotating blade target, (b) Its time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Its magnitude spectrum, (d) Its spectrogram
5 Experimental results and data analysis
The detection, extraction of Doppler generated by rotation/motion
of the target and accomplishing the targeted measurements using
the developed CW radar is experimentally investigated in different
cases i.e. with different types of targets. To perform these tasks,
rotating double blades fan (a), rotating triple blades fan (b),
oscillating pendulum (c), approaching/receding motion target (d),
walking person (e), jogging person (f) and cycling person (g), as
shown in Fig. 4 are operated in front of the radar in the open field
to have the realistic measurements. The experimental results
associated with all these measurements are reported in this section
with computed measurement errors in terms of deviation and RMS
errors.
5.1 RPM measurement of rotating blades
The experiment of measuring the Doppler frequency and RPM of
rotating blades of targets is conducted in the outdoor field through
which the measurement accuracy of developed CW radar is
examined. For this experiment, two types of fans are taken, one fan
having two blades of each length 25 cm (shown in Fig. 4a) and
second fan having three blades of each length 7 cm (as shown in
Fig. 4b) and these two targets are operated separately in front of the
radar at 615 and 1725 rpm as shown in Figs. 5a and 6a,
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respectively. When the fan's blades rotate, the radar signal that falls
on the faces of the rotating blades gets modulated and reflected
back to the receiving antenna.
The radar receives the echo signal, down converts, filters,
amplifies, samples and sends the samples to the data logging
computer as discussed in Section 4. The cause for the Doppler
generation i.e. modulation in this case is the rotation of the blades
in front of the radar. The received time-series voltage signal, i.e.
the output of the baseband amplifier, corresponding to the Doppler
of rotating blades is acquired for a period of 5 s and the results are
shown in Figs. 5b and 6b for both targets. The contribution of
clutters and noise present in the time-series signal is removed by a
bandpass filter of cutoff frequency 2 Hz–2 kHz. The frequency
components present in the time-domain radar signal, shown in
Fig. 5b, are clearly appearing in the magnitude spectrum plot
shown in Fig. 5c and the observations are given in Table 2.
The strong Doppler of 20.5 Hz is corresponding to the blade
rotations while the other week frequency components of 40.99 and
143.4 Hz are corresponding to the vibration of rotating structure
base platform that occurred throughout the measurements and
pickup of these Doppler components proves the sensitivity of the
developed radar system even for the micro-vibrations. The
spectrogram plot on the radar echo signal, shown in Fig. 5b, is also
generated and shown in Fig. 5d that clearly shows all these strong
5
Fig. 6  Picture of outdoor experimental setup with
(a) Triple rotating blade target, (b) Its time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Its magnitude spectrum, (d) Its spectrogram

Table 2 RPM measurement of rotating target as given in Table 3. To examine the stability, accuracy and
Double blades rotations (N = 2) repeatability of RPM measurement of rotating blades using the
Tachometer Measured fd, Power, Remark developed radar, several experimental trials are conducted in the
reading Hz dB/Hz outdoor environment and a portion of the results are given in
Table 4. Both rotating targets are operated in front of the radar, at
615 RPM 020.50 −20.14 due to blades
the range of 2 m, at different RPMs, individually, and the RPMs
rotation
are measured using the tachometer and radar. The measurement
040.99 −39.77 due to base- deviation errors (in %) are computed inputting the tachometer and
platform vibration radar measurements in (9) and the measurement error statistics are
143.40 −46.61 due to base- given in Table 4. The maximum measurement deviation error
platform vibration obtained is −0.25 and +0.70% for double and triple rotating blades,
respectively. These results prove that the radar measurements keep
a good correlation with the tachometer readings and the radar
Table 3 RPM measurement of rotating target system is stable and accurate for the measurements of different
Triple blades rotations (N = 3) RPMs. To examine the radar measurement repeatability, a double
Tachometer Measured fd, Power, Remark blades target is operated in front of the radar at different RPMs:
reading dB/Hz 392, 615, 910, 1230, 1497 and 1672 rpm one by one at the range of
Hz
2 m at the beginning of the experiment and the same order of RPM
1725 RPM 057.53 −45.66 due to stand is repeated at different trial ranges: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 m. The
vibrations corresponding radar signals measured for all the RPMs at all the
086.25 −18.92 due to blades ranges are recorded in the computer where all the calculations
rotation associated with the RPM measurement are carried out. The radar
115.00 −43.99 due to base- RPM measurement values are given in the right part of Table 4
platform vibrations against the respective trial range. The RMS error value on these
172.50 −47.88 due to grill radar measurement RPM values is computed, using (10), to
vibrations examine the correctness of radar RPM repeatability measurement
and the same is also given in Table 4. The observed maximum
RMS error value is 2.27 and this value clearly evidences the
and weak frequency components and their stability throughout the accuracy of radar RPM repeatability measurements. However, the
measurement time. radial direction of radar has to be properly aligned along the blades
Using (6), the calculated RPM for the measured strong Doppler rotational vector direction to have accurate RPM measurements.
frequency of 20.5 Hz is 615 which keeps a good correlation with
the laser tachometer (DT-2234C) reading i.e. 615 RPM as given in 5.2 Separation of multiple rotating targets
Table 2. Similarly, the magnitude spectrum and spectrogram plots
are generated for triple-blade rotations as shown in Figs. 6c and d, In order to examine the capability of developed CW radar in terms
respectively, on the time-domain radar echo signal shown in of Doppler frequency separations, an experiment with two
Fig. 6b. The observations are given in Table 3 which clearly show simultaneous rotating targets is conducted. In this case, one fan
that the developed radar picked-up the strong (86.25 Hz) as well as (triple blades) is located at a distance of 1 m while another one
weak Doppler signals (57.53, 115 and 172.5 Hz) during the (double blades) is at 2 m as shown in Fig. 7a and both are operated
measurements. Again this result proves the sensitivity of the at different RPMs i.e. 1163 and 1123 RPM, respectively.
developed radar even for the micro-vibrations. The calculated The time-series echo signal is logged for 5 s as shown in
RPM, as per (6), using the strong Doppler frequency is 1725 which Fig. 7b. The radar echo signal gets modulated due to the
keeps good correlation with the tachometer reading i.e. 1725 RPM contribution of two rotating targets of different speeds and ranges.

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© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Table 4 RPM measurements, deviation and RMS error
Measurement stability and accuracy analysis (range = 2 m) Measurement repeatability analysis
Trial ID Tachometer reading Radar M/m (RPM) Error, % Measurement is corresponding to double
(RPM) blade rotations (N = 2)
Double Triple Double Triple Double Triple Trial range, Radar M/m (RPM) RMS error
blades blades blades blades blades blades m
1 0392 0200 0392.4 0198.6 −0.10 +0.70 2 392.4, 613.9, 912.3, 1.77
1227.7, 1495.1, 1670.2
2 0615 0472 0613.9 0468.9 +0.17 +0.65 3 389.8, 617.4, 911.5, 2.17
1227.9, 1494.5, 1669.8
3 0910 1020 0912.3 1023.2 −0.25 −0.31 4 391.3, 616.7, 907.8, 2.20
1232.9, 1500.1, 1670.3
4 1230 1376 1227.7 1380.6 +018 −0.33 5 393.3, 612.9, 908.3, 2.03
1228.0, 1495.3, 1669.0
5 1497 1465 1495.1 1462.5 +0.12 +0.17 6 390.1, 616.2, 909.5, 1.95
1231.2, 1494.0, 1669.3
6 1672 1792 1670.2 1790.8 +0.10 +0.06 7 391.0, 616.5, 906.7, 2.27
1232.1, 1500.2, 1670.5

Fig. 7  Picture of outdoor experimental setup with

(a) Simultaneous rotations of double and triple blade targets, (b) Their time-series plots of radar echo signals, (c) Their magnitude spectrums, (d) Their spectrograms

intensity (−46 dB/Hz). These results prove that the developed CW

radar accurately distinguish the Doppler frequencies generated by
the simultaneous rotation of two targets. The calculated
corresponding RPM for these two Doppler frequencies is 1163.4
and 1123.8 RPM, respectively, which keeps good correlation with
the tachometer readings. However, if both the targets are operated
at the same RPM, this system cannot separate them since the
Doppler will overlap with each other.

5.3 Pendulum oscillation measurement

Fig. 8  Geometrical illustration of oscillating pendulum
The power spectrum of the logged time-series echo signal is
generated and the results are shown in Fig. 7c. The spectrum
clearly exhibits two strong frequency components at 58.17 and
37.46 Hz which are corresponding to the RPM of two rotating
targets. Further, the corresponding spectrogram results shown in
Fig. 7d also exhibit that closer target keeps high amplitude/
intensity (−42 dB/Hz) and distant one keeps lower amplitude/
As shown in Fig. 8, when a pendulum is dropped from position1
(P1), it comes down to position P2 and then goes to position P3.
During this journey, the initial angle θP1 gets decreased to 0° (on
radial axis) and increased to θP3. This journey profile increases the
Doppler to the maximum while coming from P2 from P1,
decreases the Doppler while going from P2 to P3 so as to complete
a half cycle of Doppler profile on the time–frequency
(spectrogram) domain. Therefore, there will be two Doppler peaks
for every cycle of the pendulum swing. This journey continuous till
the pendulum reaches the equilibrium state.

IET Sci. Meas. Technol. 7

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Fig. 9  Picture of outdoor experimental setup with
(a) Swinging pendulum target, (b) Its time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Its magnitude spectrum, (d) Its spectrogram
Table 5 OPM and T measurement results and error
statistics
Trail ID Mass/length, Theory T Radar T Error, %
kg/m (s)/OPM (s)/OPM
1 0.351/0.82 1.81/33.00 1.79/33.50
2 0.351/1.50 2.45/24.48 2.44/24.50
3 0.351/2.00 2.83/21.14 2.79/21.50
4 0.100/0.82 1.81/33.00 1.79/33.50
5 0.100/1.50 2.45/24.48 2.50/24.00
6 0.100/2.00 2.83/21.14 2.79/21.50
In order to examine the capability of developed CW radar in
extracting low Doppler profile corresponding to an oscillating
pendulum, a reflecting aluminium foil sheet surrounded pendulum
bob of different length of rope are made to swing (oscillate) in
front of the radar at a range of 3 m as shown in Fig. 9a. An end of
pendulum rope is tied at the top of a 2 m stand for the experimental
trials and thus, the pendulum can freely swing in front of the radar.
The pendulum bob is taken up to a point, released from there, as
shown in Fig. 8, and then the pendulum starts swinging. The echo
time-series signal corresponding to this experiment and its
magnitude spectrogram plot are shown in Figs. 9b and c,
respectively. The time-series signal has multiple Doppler frequency
components (DC through 70 Hz) as seen in Fig. 9c. The Doppler
component corresponding to positions P1, P2 and P3 are marked in
the spectrogram plot shown in Fig. 9d. Every two peaks in the
spectrogram plot are equal to one cycle of the pendulum swing.
The OPM and T are calculated by automatically finding the
number of Doppler peaks per minute and inputting it in (8). The
calculated OPM and T in this experiment are 33 and 1.81 s,
respectively.
The radar measurements of OPM and T corresponding to
different mass and rope length of pendulums and their theoretical
values calculated using (7) during different trials are given in
Table 5. The measurement results keep good correlation with the
theoretical values. These results prove the stability and accuracy of
OPM and T measurement using the developed radar system.
8 IET Sci. Meas. Technol.
5.4 Detection of approaching/receding motion target
In order to validate the frequency shifting technique (explained in
Section 4) in detecting the approaching/receding motion target, an
experiment is conducted by operating a car (for good RCS and
01.1/−1.5 controlled speed i.e. 50 km/h), as a target, in front of the radar as
0.4/−0.08 shown in Fig. 10a. Now, the radar power is increased to 25 dBm to
1.41/−1.7 cover the maximum range of 300 m and baseband signal (f2) is
1.1/−1.51 applied at the frequency of 1 kHz. The scenarios in this experiment
−2.04/1.9 are (i) initially the car is stopped (static target) in front of the radar
1.41/−1.7 at the range of 250 m, (ii) the car is driven towards the radar at a
specified speed (approaching target) and (iii) the car is driven from
the radar at a specified speed (receding target). The time-series
signals for all these scenarios are recorded and a portion of those
signals (1 s for static target, 5 s for approaching the target and 5 s
for receding target) is combined and shown in Fig. 10b. The
magnitude spectrum and spectrogram plot of the time-series signal
are shown in Figs. 10c and d, respectively. The magnitude
spectrum clearly exhibits that the echo time-series signal has three
frequency components: 0.5, 1 and 1.5 kHz. Since the Doppler
components corresponding to the approaching and receding motion
target are superimposed with the reference baseband frequency i.e.
f2 = 1 kHz, the spectrum is clean and strong. Further, the
spectrogram plot shows the time occurrence of these frequencies as
1 kHz for the static target (only reference baseband frequency f2)
for first 1 s, 1.5 kHz for approaching motion target (reference
baseband frequency + Doppler i.e. f2 + fd = 1.5 kHz) for next 5 s
and 0.5 kHz for receding motion target (reference baseband
frequency − Doppler i.e. f2−fd = 0.5 kHz) for another 5 s. Thus, the
measured frequency (f2±fd) accurately distinguishes the
approaching/receding motion target and static target. The actual
Doppler frequency in both cases is 0.5 kHz i.e. the radial velocity
is 14.15 m/s (≃50 km/h) which is the actual speed of the operated
car target. These results prove the capability of the frequency
shifting technique and a developed radar system in detecting the
approaching/receding motion target as well as finding the speed
(radial velocity) of the target.
5.5 Human walking and jogging Doppler profile extraction
In this case, the Doppler signatures of a walking and jogging
person are analysed. Developed radar is used to acquire the echo
signal of a person (target) walking towards the radar with reducing
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Fig. 10  Picture of outdoor experimental setup with
(a) A car target, (b) Time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Magnitude spectrum, (d) Spectrogram

Fig. 11  Picture of an outdoor experimental setup with

(a) A walking human target, (b) Time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Magnitude spectrum, (d) Spectrogram

the speed as he comes closer, as shown in Fig. 11a. A portion of
the time-series signal corresponding to this experiment and its
magnitude spectrum is shown in Figs. 11b and c, respectively. The
plots clearly show that (i) first 0.25 s (beyond 15 m range) radar
received very weak signal, (ii) echo signal amplitude increases as
the target approaches the radar and (iii) echo signal has a spectrum
of frequency components due to the body, hands and legs
movements while walking. The spectrogram plot of this
experiment shown in Fig. 11d evidences these observations. Since
the person was walking towards the radar, the Doppler signature
appears above ≃37 Hz (biased with) due to the target walking
speed i.e. body movement velocity (≃1.04 m/s) and this frequency
approaches 0 Hz as the target reduces the walking speed when it
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© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
goes closer to the radar. In addition to this, as the target
approaches, the radar starts picking up the legs and hands
movements as well, which are reflected on the spectrogram as
marked. To confirm and demonstrate the pickups corresponding to
these different motions, several different experiments were
conducted and the spectrogram results of two experiments are
presented in Figs. 12a and b. Fig. 12a is corresponding to a target
walking towards the radar from a closer range i.e. 10 m in this
work. Thus, the Doppler signatures corresponding to hands and
legs movements are clearly detected from the 0 s onwards in
addition to the walking main Doppler i.e. ≃23 Hz (0.65 m/s).
Another result shown in Fig. 12b is corresponding to a target
slowly, with little steps, walking (0.57 m/s) towards the radar
9
 Fig. 12  Confirmatory demonstration experimental spectrogram results for walking human target with
(a) Hands movement, (b) Without hands movement with little steps

Fig. 13  Picture of an outdoor experimental setup with

(a) A jogging human target, (b) Time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Magnitude spectrum, (d) Spectrogram

without hands movement. Therefore, in this spectrogram result, no
frequency component is detected other than the Doppler signature
of body movements and this value goes down as the slowly
Q5 walking target approaches the radar. These two spectrogram results
confirm and demonstrate the radar pickups of body, hands and legs
movements of a walking target. The radar system is also used to
acquire the echo signal of a person (target) jogging in front of the
radar at a range of 4 m as shown in Fig. 13a, the time-series signal
corresponding to this experiment and its magnitude spectrum plot
are shown in Figs. 13b and c, respectively. The main observations
are (i) echo signal is stationary and repeat its periodicity around 0  vertical Doppler signature count is 108 min−1 and the Doppler
V, about a period ≃0.83 s, as the person jogs at a spot and (ii) echo
signal has multiple frequency components mainly between DC and
58 Hz. Fig. 13d shows the spectrogram of this experiment and its
evidences for the spectral periodicity. Since the person just jogs at
a spot i.e. no body movements unlike walking target, the Doppler
signature appears just above the 0 Hz, which is not in the case of
the walking target due to its radial velocity component.
It is also noted that in the walking case, the frequency goes to 0  below 50 Hz. These two spectrogram results confirm and
Hz only when the target stops walking. Further, the Doppler
signature of jogging case consists of vertical signatures due to the
legs/knees (strong signal) and hands (week signal) coherent
movements at a spot and every vertical Doppler signature is
corresponding to one jog. The number of jogs per minute can be
measured just by counting the vertical Doppler signatures for a
period of 1 min which, in Fig. 13d, is 72 min−1 and this
measurement value matches with the manual count. To confirm
and demonstrate this Doppler profile for the jogging case, several
different experiments were conducted and the spectrogram results
of two experiments are presented in Figs. 14a and b. Fig. 14a is a
spectrogram result corresponding to a jogging-speed-increased
(108 jogs per minute) wide-range hands movements target. This
profile change of the target is reflected in the spectrogram where
signature corresponding to the hands movements appears above 50 
Hz. Another spectrogram signal, shown in Fig. 14b, is
corresponding to the same speed of jogging target but the hands
movements are restricted to narrow range. This profile is directly
reflected in the spectrogram as the number of vertical Doppler
signature count in this case is also is 108 min−1 and the Doppler
components corresponding to the hands movements appear mostly
demonstrate the radar pickups of legs/knees and hands movements
of a jogging target. However, extraction of accurate Doppler
signature of walking profile of the person and counting the number

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© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
 Fig. 14  Confirmatory demonstration experimental spectrogram results for
(a) A jogging speed increased and wide-range hands movement human target, (b) Jogging speed increased and narrow-range hands movement human target

Fig. 15  Picture of an outdoor experimental setup with

(a) A cycling human target (arrive – stop), (b) Time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Magnitude spectrum, (d) Spectrogram

of steps walked become difficult in this system due to the operating starts going down at the time instant 7.30 s as the break is applied
frequency of this radar. to reduce the speed and reaches the 0 Hz at the time instant 9.20 s.
This Doppler signature matches with the bicycle target riding
5.6 Doppler extraction of cycling motions profile i.e. the person rode the bicycle at a constant speed (2.12 
m/s) for the first 7.30 s and applied break slowly from the time
This experimental study is devoted to analyse the Doppler instant 7.30 s to reduce the speed. During thie time i.e. after 7.30 s,
signatures of a person riding a bicycle. In this study, the the echo signal power is high (≃−33 dB/Hz) due to the closeness of
transmitting power is kept at 6 dBm and hence, the target is the bicycle target to the radar. After 9.20 s, no frequency
operated from a range of 40 m. This bicycle target is operated in component is received because the bicycle motion is completely
two different scenarios, in front of the radar, in this experimental stopped. Further, after 7.30 s i.e. during the bicycle motion
study as (i) person rides the bicycle towards the radar and stops it stopping period, additional frequency components are observed
after coming closer as shown in Fig. 15a and (ii) person rides the around the main descending Doppler due to the activates of
bicycle towards the radar, diverge/move-away (takes a left) after applying break, balancing the cycle, keeping the legs down to stop
coming closer and continuous riding as shown in Fig. 16a. The Q7 the cycle motion etc., and all these movements/motions in front of
Q6 time-series and magnitude spectrum plots, for the first scenario, are the radar generate multiple micro-Doppler signatures, which are
shown in Figs. 15b and c, respectively. The main observations are reflected in Fig. 15d. In addition to these signatures, few more
(i) echo signal reaches maximum amplitude when the target comes frequency components of maximum bandwidth 47 Hz (micro-
closer and (ii) frequency present in the echo signal varies between Doppler) are also observed below the main Doppler (75 Hz) during
DC and 80 Hz. The spectrogram result corresponding to Fig. 15b is the period of riding the bicycle target i.e. 0–7.30 s. This additional
shown in Fig. 15d, which evidences for these observations. The signature is due to the bicycle pedalling (knees/legs) motions. To
measured Doppler frequency due to the bicycle target motion i.e. confirm and demonstrate all these Doppler signatures, several
due to mainly the body motion is 75 Hz (2.12 m/s) and this experiments were conducted and the spectrogram results of two
frequency is observed during the entire period of cycling motion experiments are presented in Figs. 17a and b.
i.e. 0–7.30 s. During this period the signal amplitude increases
from −58 to −46 dB/Hz. This measured Doppler frequency (75 Hz)
IET Sci. Meas. Technol. 11
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Fig. 16  Picture of an outdoor experimental setup with
(a) A cycling human target (arrive – diverge), (b) Time-series plot of radar echo signal, (c) Magnitude spectrum, (d) Spectrograms

Fig. 17  Confirmatory demonstration experimental spectrogram result for a cycling human target with
(a) Increased speed and pedalling, (b) With no pedalling within radar FoV

The experimentation scenario for Fig. 17a is (i) bicycle target maximum echo power (≃−22 dB/Hz) is measured when the target
was rode at increased (by adjusting the bicycle gear) speed (3.6  is close the radar. The time-series and magnitude spectrum plots for
m/s) and (ii) pedalling was stopped, the break was applied at the the second scenario i.e. ride-diverge experimental study are shown
time instant of 8 s and hence, the speed was gradually reduced. in Figs. 16b and c, respectively. The main observations are (i)
This experimentation profile is reflected in the Doppler signature in signal amplitude increases as the target approaches the radar and
Fig. 17a as the measured main Doppler frequency is 130 Hz, this (ii) the magnitude spectrum consists of a wide range of frequency
frequency starts descending at the time instant of 8th second, the components between DC and ≃190 Hz unlike the previous cases.
micro-Doppler signature (max. bandwidth of 60 Hz) due to the The spectrogram corresponding to Fig. 16b is shown in Fig. 16d
pedalling motions is also observed for the period of 0–8 s, which evidences for these observations. The echo signal power
additional frequency components around the descending Doppler increases from ≃−63 to ≃−28 dB/Hz as the target approaches the
are also observed and the maximum echo signal power (≃−25  radar. The micro-Doppler signature (bandwidth of 45 Hz)
dB/Hz) is measured when the target is close to the radar. To further corresponding to the pedalling motion is also observed in this case.
investigate the influence of pedalling motions in the Doppler The measured main Doppler frequency is 125 Hz (3.53 m/s) and
signature, another experiment is conducted as (i) the bicycle target this signature is observed till the time instant 5.30 s i.e. till the time
was rode at the increased speed of 4.25 m/s from the range of 80 m the bicycle target got exposed in front of the radar. After the 5.30 s,
and (ii) the pedalling is stopped at 40 m i.e. after entering into the the target starts to diverge (take aside); hence, the Doppler
radar beam. Since no bicycle pedalling within the radar field of signature highly fluctuates (bandwidth of 190 Hz) during the
view (FoV), the speed is gradually decreased as the target period of turning the bicycle target to the left side and the signature
approaches the radar. This target profile is reflected in the reaches 0 Hz as the target moves away from the radar FoV. During
spectrogram plot in Fig. 17b as the measured main Doppler this turning time, the radar signal is influenced by every motion/
frequency at 0 s is 150 Hz, this frequency is gradually reduced to 0  movement of the target i.e. body/bicycle motions, pedalling
Hz, since no pedalling in this case, no any micro-Doppler signature process, knees/legs movements etc. Since all the actions happen in
corresponding to the pedalling motion is observed, additional front of the radar during the turning time, the spectrum gets highly
frequency components during the bicycle stopping time i.e. after fluctuated as shown in Fig. 16d. Further, in this case, the bicycle
the time instant of 8 s are observed as in the above cases and the target speed is low (3.12 m/s); hence, the Doppler signature is

12 IET Sci. Meas. Technol.

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Fig. 18  Confirmatory demonstration experimental spectrogram result for a cycling human target with
(a) Increased speed and turning, (b) With no pedalling within radar FoV
picked up by the antenna sidelobes for a period of ≃2 s when the
target crosses the radar at a side and the corresponding Doppler
signature is reflected in Fig. 16d. Since the pickups are from
sidelobes, the power level of the echo signal is very low i.e. ≃−68  separating them even they rotate at same RPM (e.g. RPM
dB/Hz. To confirm and demonstrate these observations, several
experiments were conducted and spectrogram results
corresponding to two experiments are shown in Figs. 18a and b.
The riding speed increased (4.4 m/s) bicycle target was operated in
front of the radar for first 5 s and then the target was taken aside.
The spectrogram signature corresponding to this experiment is
shown in Fig. 18a which reflects this scenario.
The measured main Doppler is 155 Hz, pedalling micro-
Doppler signature (max. bandwidth of 65 Hz) is observed and huge
Doppler fluctuation (max. bandwidth of 245 Hz) is observed
during the period of taking aside. Since the target is operated at an
increased speed (4.4 m/s) in this case, the Doppler signature picked
up the antenna sidelobes disappear within a second unlike the
previous case. Another experiment is conducted with the same
target operating at a speed of 4.3 m/s within the FoV of radar
without pedalling and taking aside after coming closer to the radar.
The corresponding Doppler signature is shown in Fig. 18b, where
initially the main Doppler signature is at 150 Hz and this value
gradually descends till the 7.30 s. Since no pedalling in this case,
no any micro-Doppler signature relevant to pedalling is observed.
During the turning period, a huge Doppler fluctuation (max.
bandwidth of 210 Hz) and antenna sidelobe pickups are also
observed. Similar results are obtained in all the experimental trials
conducted with different RCS targets i.e. different size of cycles
and persons. All those results have a well correlation with the
target's motion profiles. However, counting the number of times
the bicycle target was pedalled when the target is particularly far Q8
away (in this work >30 m), becomes difficult in this system due to
the operating frequency and power limitation of this radar.
6 Conclusion
Significance of extraction of Doppler signatures generated by
micro/macro rotations/movements and performing their associated
measurements using the radar is briefed with necessary basic
concepts and background-related works. Performance and
measurement accuracy of the radar is examined in a different case
study of open-field experiments: RPM measurement, multiple
rotating targets separation, pendulum OPM measurement, detection
of approaching/receding motion target and human walking/jogging/
cycling Doppler signature extraction. All these radar measurements
are validated against the standard measurement instrument readings
and theoretical estimations. The error statistics of measurement
data corresponding to all these experiments are analysed and the
measurement stability, accuracy and repeatability of developed
radar system are proved. Further, this radar can be directly
deployed for 24/7 monitoring of small areas and detect the micro-
to-macro motional/rotational changes in the scene of interest.
However, possible further enhancements of this measurement
system are (i) resolving the rotational vector and radar radial
direction, finding the angle between them and measuring RPM in
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© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
the scenarios where LoS alignment becomes difficult (e.g. RPM
measurement of a wind turbine), (ii) modulating radar signal (e.g.
linear frequency modulation), finding the targets ranges and
measurement of a quadcopter propeller rotor blades) and (iii)
operating the radar at higher frequency (shorter wavelength) so as
to have more accurate measurements even for tiny movements of
low RCS targets (e.g. counting of walking/knee/leg steps, hands/
head movements and heartbeat/ respiration rate measurement).
These detections/measurements will support for the accurate
identification and classification of targets. Further, though all the
radar measurements in this work keep good correlation to standard
instrument readings, the error values are not equal to zero. This is
due to the radar wavelength which can be definitely avoided by
decreasing the wavelength i.e. operating the radar at higher bands
namely X, Ku, K, Ka etc. Addressing these limitations/
requirements to enhance the performance of this measurement
system is the near future research work.
7 Acknowledgments
All the authors express their sincere thanks to Prof. Surendra Pal
(https://surendrapal.wixsite.com/spal/research-blog) for his
unparallel technical and administrative support provided during all
the stages of the work reported in this paper.
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14
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