The posthuman way of war

Recent interventions from a ‘posthumanist’ or ‘new materialist’ perspective have highlighted the embedded character of human systems within a ‘panarchy’ of human and non-human systems. This article brings attention to a very particular element of materiality, one with a profound significance for issues of security – relations between human and non-human animals in instances of conflict. It is an indication of the deeply human-centred character of both international relations and security studies that almost none of the central texts mention the very significant roles that non-human animals have in the conduct of war. We argue that the character of war would have been radically different but for the forced participation by an enormous range of non-human animals. Even though, with the improvements in transportation over the last century, non-human animals are less evident in the context of the movement of people and equipment, they still play a significant number of roles in the contemporary war-machines of wealthy countries. Drawing on literature from critical animal studies, sociology and memoirs, this article discusses the enormous variety of roles that non-human animals have played in the conduct of war, and examines the character of human–non-human animal relations in times of war

On Phase Measurement in FMCW Radar Systems

Unlike AM and PM systems, FM systems do not necessarily require the use of a dual I/Q receiver for unambiguous phase measurement. In this paper we describe this phenomenon in detail and work out the conditions when single-channel phase measurements can be used for the reliable measurement of the phase and the Doppler frequency of targets in FMCW radars systems. The developed theory is applied to surveillance and automotive radar systems to determine the velocity bounds for the unambiguous measurement of phase. The influence of phase noise in the same context is discussed. Results of coherent averaging on the data acquired using a single-channel radar system are presented to validate the theory.</p

Phase Noise in FMCW Radar Systems

Phase noise is one of the fundamental performance parameters in modern radar, communication, spectroscopic, and metrological systems. In this paper a phase noise theory has been developed for FMCW radar systems. A new design equation has been derived to specify the maximum bound on the allowable source phase noise level in radar systems. The non-linear phase noise decorrelation function due to coherent mixing has been analysed for propagation delays less than the coherence time of the reference oscillator, and the spectral broadening of target responses has been discussed for delay times greater than the coherence time. The effects of the subsystems in the transceiver chain are presented and a new model of phase noise in ADCs is discussed. Phase noise modelling techniques are presented, followed by a comparison of a PLL frequency synthesiser with a low-noise frequency synthesiser to demonstrate the reduction of phase noise sidebands for improved detection and tracking performance. Practical measurements from two millimetre wave FMCW radar systems utilising the two frequency synthesisers have been presented to validate the developed theory.</p