microwave radar
- noun
- /ˈmaɪkroʊweɪv ˈreɪdɑr/
- Specialized
- Military aircraft utilize microwave radar to detect enemy positions and monitor surrounding areas.
Examples
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Robotic vacuum cleaners will use microwave radar to avoid the walls and furniture.
Fiction book (1999) -
Scientists are developing microwave radar systems that can detect vehicles through heavy snowfall.
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Today's patent application covers even more implementations of Apple's presence detection technology that would utilize ultrasonic sensors, microwave radar, and camera and audio systems to detect and identify the user.
Blog text (1) -
The drone equipped with microwave radar can accurately identify obstacles in its flight path.
Synonyms
A machine that uses radio waves to find objects and show their distance and speed
A system that finds distant objects like planes or ships by sending radio pulses and hearing echoes
How Far
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is transparently compositional: 'microwave' specifies the type of 'radar' (a radar that uses microwave-frequency radio waves). This noun+noun technical naming pattern is regular and cross-linguistically common, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Microwave radar gets its name from how it works: microwave are short radio waves and radar sends quick pulses that bounce off objects. When the pulses return, the system can tell how far away and where the object is, so the name means 'a system that detects and locates objects'.