Radar Tracking - how does it work?

An explanation .......

So how do these super intelligent tracking radar systems work in practice? At its simplest; a radar system sends out streams of electromagnetic waves from a rotating antenna; when these waves strike and obstruction they bounce off and although the vast majority of them bounce away and lost a sufficiently large number will bounce straight back to the antenna. This antenna will receive the returned waves, amplify them and then pass them on to the computer which will interpret them.

All very simple so far, but this is where matters become complex. The waves that are picked up don't only contain those which have bounced back from the relevant target, there is an awful lot of junk in there as well which has to be recognized, filtered out, and discarded. The fact that there is a target out there is interesting information but on its own not very useful; it is necessary to know just what the target is, how fast it is, and where it is heading before anything can be done about it.

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To determine what it is the pattern of the waves is analysed and compared with the patterns of all the known objects, whether these are friendly aircraft, hostile aircraft, civilian aircraft or even birds; the speed of the target can be calculated by comparing data from several wave pulses and its speed can be calculated by using the Doppler effect. With these items of information computer can determine whether or not the object which is being tracked is likely to be hostile, and the calculation can be made to determine just where, if the missile were launched the object would be when that missile reached it. It would therefore be possible to fire a missile which would arrive very close to the target and which could then use its own guidance system to zero in and destroy it. Sometimes the greater accuracy several antennae could be used so that data from each one could be compared in order to achieve a more accurate fix, and sophisticated systems are capable of tracking and identifying numerous targets simultaneously.