Technical Brochure: Liquid Level Sensing With Pulsar™ Pulse Burst Radar

Practical radar instrumentation, first developed by defense initiatives of WWII, has grown to include a myriad of sensors and transmitters. Today, radar serves us in applications that range from the commonplace to the cosmic. Radar maps the topology of distant planets and pinpoints weather fronts on earth (doppler radar); it automatically opens supermarket doors (continuous wave radar); and it cooks our meals with microwaves (cavity magnetron radar). Though radar for level sensing is a newer application, it is presently the fastest growing measurement technology in level control.

But radar's beginnings were less than auspicious. Early level instruments were costly, bulky, over-specialized and complicated. The development of simpler, less costly and easier-to-use devices would be made possible by solid state components and by a growing fund of applications knowledge.

Radar level sensing devices detect the position of process liquids by measuring the interval between the emission and return of high frequency radio waves. Guided Wave Radar, used by Magnetrol's Eclipse and Horizon transmitters, is a contact technology that launches its signal along a waveguide which runs directly into the process media. Pulsar's Pulse Burst Radar is a non-contact technology that launches its signal into open air along a trajectory directed toward the process media.