Since the discovery of electromagnetic wave by Heinrich Hertz in 1887, the development of radio detection and ranging systems has changed our lives in many different ways: From weather forcasting to aircraft safety.    

In the sand lab, we have built and calibrated a small-scaled radar system to locate tracer particles (size down to ~5mm for the 10GHz system) in three dimensions and in real time. In comparison to computer tomography or other imaging techniques (see e.g. Imaging Particles), the excellent time resolution facilitates the investigation of granular dynamics.

The goal is to implement this technique to investigate granular drag for the enhancement of energy efficiency in process engineering machineries.