Radar as a Key to Global Aeroecology

Abstract

Open, systematic, and global approaches are needed to address the challenges of aeroconservation and pest management. Recent technical progress enables deeper investigation and understanding of aeroecology. Radar plays a central role in flying species monitoring in the global scope. The technology provides various ways of target detection and tracking, working for multiple ranges and different visibility. The existing technology allows deploying global monitoring of avian and insect species. This work discusses the essentials of the technology and the history of its application for bird and insect detection. The author describes the development of the topic according to the main groups of radar approaches: pulsed sets, vertical-looking solutions, harmonic systems, and efficient frequency modulated continuous wave radar. Advances in big data processing, robotics, computation, and communications enable practitioners to combine the discussed radar solutions aiming at global avian and insect biodiversity monitoring and negative human impact systematic estimation.