Microwave Sensing, Signals and Systems
Department of Microelectronics

prof.dr.ir. F.A. Le Chevalier

Parttime Professor
Microwave Sensing, Signals and Systems (MS3), Department of Microelectronics

Expertise: High resolution radar for detection and classification; adaptive radar processing; Radar system engineering

Themes: Radar technology

Biography

François Le Chevalier is in charge of the Chair �Radar Systems Engineering� at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands), and Scientific Director of Thales Air Operations Division in Rungis (94), France.

Mr. Le Chevalier began his career at the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales (Onera), where he initiated research on radar target and background signatures processing. In 1986, Mr. Le Chevalier joined Thomson-CSF (now Thales), where he pioneered the French developments in adaptive digital beamforming and STAP radar systems demonstrations and shared apertures and multisensor concepts design and validation. In 1998, he joined the Airborne Systems group, as Scientific Director, in charge of advanced research and development coordination (airborne radars, electronic warfare, airborne mission systems).

He chaired the Scientific Committee of the International Radar Conference, Brest, 1999, and he has been active in the Technical Program Committees of major radar international conferences (recently: Radar 2007 in Edinburgh, Great Britain, IRS 2008 in Wroclaw, Poland, Radar 2009 in Bordeaux, France, EuRAD 2009 in Roma, Italy, and Radar 2010 in Washington DC, USA).

An author of many papers, tutorials, and patents in radar and electronic warfare, Prof. Le Chevalier is an Emerite member of the Societe des Electriciens et des Electroniciens (SEE), and a senior member of IEEE. He is the author of a book on "Radar and Sonar Signal Processing Principles" published by Artech House in 2002, and a book on "Antennes non-standard" published by Hermes Science in 2010.

Research

  • High resolution radar for detection and classification: F. Le Chevalier analysed in detail the characteristics of radar target signatures, and identified appropriate characteristic features (�range-Doppler invariants�) for naval, air, and ground targets, together with the classification procedures which were experimented on real targets. He also made a detailed physical analysis of glint effects of tracking systems, and defined and evaluated appropriate processing for minimizing these effects.
  • Adaptive radar processing F. Le Chevalier made an extensive analysis of adaptive processing techniques for antenna arrays, Doppler, and space-time (STAP) applications, with special accent on the importance of noise reference. He proposed the concept of digital adaptive beamforming for ground surveillance, and he was the technical authority for the 1st French ground surveillance demonstrator of real-time digital adaptive beamforming (SAFRAN demonstrator), successfully realised and experimented in 1993.

    Turning to Space-time adaptive processing (STAP), he then conducted with L. Savy the studies and the definition of the algorithms for the 1st French STAP demonstrator, successfully experimented in 1999, with comparison of algorithms with and without noise-only reference in real situations (see patents, and paper presented at Shanghai, 2006).

  • Radar System Engineering
    • 2004-2006: Definition and promotion of air-ground fire-control studies and development (RF systems for active and passive air-ground acquisition and targeting): target signature acquisition, system concepts.
    • 2000-2006: Definition and promotion of studies on RF multifunction sensors for future air combat systems: high frequency (6-18 GHz) low observable targeting systems, and low frequency (UHF - L band) anti-stealth acquisition systems.
    • 2006-2008: Technical design authority for the EDA Project SIMCLAIRS (Studies for Integrated Multifunction Compact Lightweight Airborne Radars and Systems) on multifunction radiofrequency payloads for tactical UAVs.
  • International scientific projects F. Le Chevalier has early been involved in international projects, as shown by his participation as a French scientific expert to the NATO/AGARD project �Detection, localisation, and identification in Year 2000�, and to NATO Group RSG 8 on radar signatures of targets and background at millimetric wavelengths.

    F. Le Chevalier was from the very beginning in 2000 the French industry representative for avionics in the definition of ETAP (European Technology Acquisition Program, involving United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and France), devoted to derisking new technologies for future combat air systems (horizon 2020): Low-Observable Apertures, Global System Study, Modular Avionics, etc.

    SIMCLAIRS (Studies for Integrated and Multifunction Compact Lightweight AIrborne Radars and Systems) is another example of international scientific project. The overall objectives of this project are �to de-risk and mature the disruptive technologies allowing breakthroughs in overall capabilities of compact SARs and multifunction RF sensors�. This project was prepared and coordinated with industrials and MODs from the very beginning by F. Le Chevalier, and has been launched in 2009 as a European Defense Agency program (France, United Kingdom, Sweden), with the first call for research suppliers across Europe finalized end 2009.

Polarimetric Time/Frequency characteristics of wind turbines as radar target

Study of dynamic micro-Doppler and polarimetric characteristics of scatered by wind turbines radar signals

Projects history

Wideband Algorithms for Migrating Targets Indication

  1. Diversity considerations in wideband radar detection of migrating targets in clutter
    Le Chevalier, Francois; Petrov, Nikita;
    Science China Information Sciences,
    Volume 62, Issue 4, pp. 40302, 2019. DOI: 10.1007/s11432-018-9735-6
    document

  2. Adaptive Detection of Range Migrating Target in non-Gaussian Clutter
    Petrov, Nikita; Le Chevalier, Francois; Yarovoy, Alexander;
    In 2019 International Radar Conference (RADAR),
    IEEE, pp. 1--6, 2019. DOI: 10.1109/RADAR41533.2019.171373

  3. Detection of range migrating targets in compound-Gaussian clutter
    N. Petrov; F. Le Chevalier; A. Yarovoy;
    IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems,
    Volume 54, Issue 1, pp. 37 - 50, Feb. 2018. DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2017.2731558

  4. Benefits of space-time diversity for radar
    François Le Chevalier; Nikita Petrov;
    In Workshop "Geolocation and navigation in space and time", URSI, France, March 28-29, 2018,
    pp. 1-9, 2018.
    document
    https://ursi-france.sciencesconf.org/

  5. Détection des cibles mobiles par radar large bande non-ambigu
    François Le Chevalier; Nikita Petrov;
    La Revue de l’Electricité et de l’Electronique (REE, https://www.see.asso.fr/ree),
    Issue 5, pp. 2-15, 2017.
    document

  6. "Bayesian Sparse Estimation of Radar Targets in the Compressed Sensing Framework" in "Compressive Sensing of Earth Observations"
    Stéphanie Bidon; Marie Lasserre; François Le Chevalier;
    C.H. Chen (Ed.);
    CRC Press, Chapter 7, , pp. 153 -176, May 2017.
    document

  7. Range migrating target detection in correlated compound-Gaussian clutter
    N. Petrov; F. Le Chevalier; N. Bogdanović; A. Yarovoy;
    In 2017 25th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO),
    pp. 2216-2220, Aug 2017. DOI: 10.23919/EUSIPCO.2017.8081603
    document

  8. Simple transmit diversity technique for phased array radar
    G. Babur; P. Aubry; François Le Chevalier;
    IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation,
    Volume 10, Issue 6, pp. 1046-1056, 2016.
    document

  9. "Wideband Wide Beam Motion Sensing" in "Advanced Ultrawideband Radar: Signals, Targets, and Applications:
    François Le Chevalier;
    James D. Taylor (Ed.);
    CRC Press, Chapter 12, , pp. 417-458, Nov. 2016.
    document

  10. Unambiguous detection of migrating targets with wideband radar in Gaussian clutter
    N. Petrov; François Le Chevalier; A. Yarovoy;
    In 2016 CIE International Conference on Radar (RADAR),
    pp. 1-5, 2016. DOI: 10.1109/RADAR.2016.8059278

  11. Performance prediction of wideband unambiguous target detection in diffuse ground clutter
    N. Petrov; François Le Chevalier; A. Yarovoy;
    In 2016 European Radar Conference (EuRAD),
    pp. 97-100, 2016.
    document

  12. Range-Doppler surface: a tool to analyse human target in ultra-wideband radar
    Yuan He; Molchanov, P.; Sakamoto, T.; Aubry, P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Yarovoy, A.;
    IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation,
    Volume 9, Issue 9, pp. 1240-1250, Dec. 2015. doi: 10.1049/iet-rsn.2015.0065.
    document

  13. Future Ocean Scatterometry: On the Use of Cross-Polar Scattering to Observe Very High Winds
    Fois, F.; Hoogeboom, P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Stoffelen, A.;
    IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing,
    Volume 53, Issue 99, pp. 5009-5020, Sep. 2015. doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2015.2416203.
    document

  14. Bayesian sparse Fourier representation of off-grid targets with application to experimental radar data
    M. Lasserre; S. Bidon; O. Besson; F. Le Chevalier;
    Signal Processing,
    Volume 111, pp. 261-273, June 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2014.12.024.
    document

  15. Dual-Polarized Planar Phased Array Analysis for Meteorological Applications
    Chen Pang; Peter Hoogeboom; François Le Chevalier; Herman W. J. Russchenberg; Jian Dong; Tao Wang; and Xuesong Wang;
    International Journal of Antennas and Propagation (),
    Volume 2015, Issue Article ID 340704, pp. 1-12, 2015. doi:10.1155/2015/340704.
    document

  16. Exploiting range migration for unambiguous velocity measurements
    Blanco-del-Campo, A.; Le Chevalier, F.; Yarovoy, A. DOI: 10.1109/IRS.2015.7226333;
    In The 16th International Radar Symposium (IRS), 24-26 June 2015,
    pp. 309 - 314, 2015.
    document

  17. Wideband spectrum estimators for unambiguous target detection
    Petrov, N.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In The 16th International Radar Symposium (IRS), 24-26 June 2015,
    pp. 676-681, 2015. doi: 10.1109/IRS.2015.7226295.
    document

  18. Iterative adaptive approach for unambiguous wideband radar target detection
    Petrov, N.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In European Radar Conference (EuRAD), 9-11 Sept. 2015,
    pp. 45-48, 2015. doi: 10.1109/EuRAD.2015.7346233.
    document

  19. Fast implementation of iterative adaptive approach for wideband unambiguous radar detection
    Petrov, N.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In 23rd European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), Aug. 31 - Sept. 4 2015,
    pp. 1207-1211, 2015. doi: 10.1109/EUSIPCO.2015.7362575.
    document

  20. Bayesian sparse estimation of a radar scene with weak and strong targets
    Marie Lasserre; Stéphanie Bidon; Olivier Besson; François Le Chevalier;
    In 3rd International Workshop on Compressed Sensing Theory and its Applications to Radar, Sonar and Remote Sensing 16-19 June 2015, Pisa, Italy,
    2015.
    document

  21. Mismatched filtering for space-time circulating codes
    T. Faucon; G. Pinaud; F. Le Chevalier;
    In IET International Radar Conference, Hangzhou, PR China, October 2015,
    2015.

  22. Wideband Wide Beam Motion Sensing - Tutorial
    F. Le Chevalier;
    IEEE International Radar Conference, Arlington, VA, USA, May 2015, 2015.

  23. Wideband Wide Beam Motion Sensing - Tutorial
    F. Le Chevalier;
    IET International Radar Conference, Hangzhou, PR China, October 2015, 2015.

  24. Bayesian sparse estimation of migrating targets for wideband radar
    Bidon, S.; Tourneret, J.-Y.; Savy, L.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on,
    Volume 50, Issue 2, pp. 871-886, April 2014.
    document

  25. Antenna Coupling Effects for Space-Time Radar Waveforms: Analysis and Calibration
    Babur, G.; Aubry, P.J.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on,
    Volume 62, Issue 5, pp. 2572-2586, May 2014.
    document

  26. Self-similarity matrix based slow-time feature extraction for human target in high-resolution radar
    Yuan He; Pascal Aubry; Francois Le Chevalier; Alexander Yarovoy;
    International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies,
    Volume 6, pp. 423-434, 2014. doi:10.1017/S1759078714000087.
    document

  27. Decentralised tracking for human target in multistatic ultra-wideband radar
    Yuan He; P. J. Aubry; F. Le Chevalier; A. Yarovoy;
    IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation,
    Volume 8, Issue 9, pp. 1215--1223, 2014. DOI: 10.1049/iet-rsn.2014.0021
    document

  28. Capon post-processing for wideband target detection
    Petrov, N.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 1-6, October 2014.
    document

  29. Multi-bursts space-time coding for active antenna systems
    Desodt, G.; Michel, G.-E.; Guyvarch, J.-P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Rabaste, O.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 1-6, October 2014.
    document

  30. Bayesian sparse Fourier representation of off-grid targets
    Lasserre, M.; Bidon, S.; Besson, O.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 1-6, October 2014.
    document

  31. Keystone transform based range-Doppler processing for human target in UWB radar
    Yuan He; Aubry, P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Yarovoy, A.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 1347-1352, May 2014.

  32. Multi-bursts space-time coding for active antenna systems
    Desodt, G.; Michel, G.-E.; Guyvarch, J.-P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Rabaste, O.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 1-6, Oct 2014.

  33. Bayesian sparse estimation of migrating targets in autoregressive noise for wideband radar
    Bidon, S.; Besson, O.; Tourneret, J.-Y.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 0579-0584, May 2014.

  34. Range-angle performances of coherent MIMO long-range radars
    Le Chevalier, F.;
    In General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS), 2014 XXXIth URSI,
    pp. 1-4, Aug 2014.

  35. Optimization of low sidelobes radar waveforms: Circulating codes
    Roussel, K.; Babur, G.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Processing of the International Radar Conference 2014, Lille, October 13-17, 2014,
    pp. 1-6, October 2014.

  36. Improved calibration technique for the transmit beamforming by a coherent MIMO radar with collocated antennas
    Babur, G.; Aubry, P.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (URSI GASS), 2014 XXXIth URSI,
    pp. 1-4, Aug 2014.

  37. An investigation on sea surface wave spectra and approximate scattering theories
    Fois, F.; Hoogeboom, P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Stoffelen, A.;
    In Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2014 IEEE International,
    pp. 4366-4369, July 2014.

  38. Future ocean scatterometry at very strong winds
    Fois, F.; Hoogeboom, P.; Le Chevalier, F.; Stoffelen, A.;
    In Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2014 IEEE International,
    pp. 3886-3889, July 2014.

  39. Space-Time Radar Waveforms: Circulating Codes
    G. Babur; P. Aubry; F. Le Chevalier;
    Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Hindawi Publishing Corp.),
    Volume 2013, Issue Article ID 809691, pp. 1-8, 2013. doi:10.1155/2013/809691.
    document

  40. Wider bandwidths for improved angle and velocity resolution
    Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), 2013 Proceedings of the 21st European,
    pp. 1-5, Sept 2013.

  41. Self-similarity analysis on human backscattering in radar
    Yuan He; Le Chevalier, F.; Yarovoy, A.G.;
    In Radar Conference (EuRAD), 2013 European,
    pp. 81-84, Oct 2013.

  42. Ultra-wideband multistatic tracking of human targets
    Yuan He; Aubry, P.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Radar Conference 2013, IET International,
    pp. 1-5, April 2013.

  43. Space-time codes for active antenna systems: Comparative performance analysis
    Babur, G.; Aubry, P.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Radar Conference 2013, IET International,
    pp. 1-6, April 2013.

  44. Range-Doppler processing for indoor human tracking by multistatic ultra-wideband radar
    Yuan He; Le Chevalier, F.; Yarovoy, A.G.;
    In Radar Symposium (IRS), 2012 13th International,
    pp. 250-253, May 2012.

  45. Association of range-doppler video sequences in multistatic UWB radar for human tracking
    Yuan He; Le Chevalier, F.; Yarovoy, A.G.;
    In Radar Conference (EuRAD), 2012 9th European,
    pp. 218-221, Oct 2012.

  46. Clutter Suppression for Moving Targets Detection with Wideband Radar
    Le Chevalier, F.; Krasnov, O.A.; Deudon, F.; Bidon, S.;
    In Processing of the 2011 European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO 2011), 1-5 September 2011, Lisbon, Portugal,
    2011. special session "Adaptive Waveform Design and Diversity".
    document

  47. Coherent integration for wideband LFMCW applied to PARSAX experimental data
    Bidon, S.; Deudon, F.; Krasnov, O.A.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Proceedings of the 8th European Radar Conference (EuRAD-2011), October 9-14 2011, Manchester, UK,
    pp. 257-260, 2011.
    document

  48. Modified Capon and APES for spectral estimation of range migrating targets in wideband radar
    Deudon, F.; Bidon, S.; Besson, O.; Tourneret, J.-Y.; Montecot, M.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Radar Conference, 2010 IEEE,
    pp. 1280-1285, May 2010.

  49. A Migrating Target Indicator for wideband radar
    Deudon, F.; Le Chevalier, F.; Bidon, S.; Besson, O.; Savy, L.;
    In Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing Workshop (SAM), 2010 IEEE,
    pp. 249-252, Oct 2010.

  50. Airborne Radar and shipborne sonar: Recent advances and compared solutions
    Doisy, Y.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Radar Conference - Surveillance for a Safer World, 2009. RADAR. International,
    pp. 1-6, Oct 2009.

  51. STAP developments in Thales
    Le Chevalier, F.; Montecot, M.; Doisy, Y.; Letestu, F.; Chevalier, P.;
    In Radar Conference, 2009. EuRAD 2009. European,
    pp. 53-56, Sept 2009.

  52. Smart beamforming and wideband signals for ground surveillance
    Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Radar Symposium, 2008 International,
    pp. 1-4, May 2008.

  53. Wideband coherent airborne radar systems: performances for moving target detection
    Becker, A.; Le Chevalier, F.;
    In Radar, 2001 CIE International Conference on, Proceedings,
    pp. 146-149, 2001.

  54. Future concepts for electromagnetic detection: from space-time-frequency resources management to wideband radars
    Le Chevalier, F.;
    Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, IEEE,
    Volume 14, Issue 10, pp. 9-17, Oct 1999.

  55. Clutter calibration for space-time airborne MTI radars
    Le Chevalier, F.; Savy, L.; Durniez, F.;
    In Radar, 1996. Proceedings., CIE International Conference of,
    pp. 82-85, Oct 1996.

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Last updated: 29 Jun 2022

François Le Chevalier

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