A range gate is an electronic circuit that selects signals within a given time period; the "gate" allows signals to pass through only within the selected time. The term is mostly used in
radar
Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...
, where range gates are used to select certain targets for further processing. It is also used in
lidar
Lidar (, also LIDAR, an acronym of "light detection and ranging" or "laser imaging, detection, and ranging") is a method for determining ranging, ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected li ...
,
time-of-flight camera
A time-of-flight camera (ToF camera), also known as time-of-flight sensor (ToF sensor), is a range imaging camera system for measuring distances between the camera and the subject for each point of the image based on time-of-flight, the round ...
s and similar roles.
In early military radars, range gates were used to select a single target and then pass on this information to other displays where more information could be seen. An example is the
AI Mk. IX radar, where the radar operator would use a ''strobe'', an on-screen cursor, to select a single target. A range gate would then filter out all the other targets that might be visible to the radar. The return within that gate was then automatically tracked without further operator intervention.
In
weather radar
A weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern w ...
, it is common to have a series of continual range gates that separate out returns at different distances and then process them to extract
Doppler shift to measure wind speed. In these cases, it is common to refer to each gate as a range bin.
References
*
* {{cite web , title=Radar Basics: Pulses and Range Gates , url=http://faculty.nps.edu/jenn/Seminars/RadarFundamentals.pdf , website=Naval Postgraduate School , first=David , last=Jenn
Electronic circuits
Radar signal processing