Highly Reliable and Accurate Level Radar for Automated Legal Custody Transfer and Inventory Management

Accuracy and reliability on liquid level measurements in bulk storage tanks are getting increasingly important for oil and gas industry in which revenue losses from incorrect measurement are becoming more costly, specifically in legal custody transfer and custom monitoring. In this paper, a robust and self-adaptive radar gauging system for high-precision continuous level measurements is presented. The radar system has a compact size and is explosion proof. It consists of a stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) transmitter and receiver with monostatic gas-tight antenna. The frequency range is from 9.5 to 10.5 GHz. With most advanced processing software algorithm implemented in the microprocessor, the accuracy of plusmn 0.3 mm over whole measuring range is obtained. Even if under severe conditions, an accuracy of plusmn 1 mm can still be attained. By means of the advanced level radar system the fine accuracy can become attainable under worst-case scenarios. Whereby the authentic custody transfer and inventory management are guaranteed