Abstract: Entomological radar enables us to visualize individual insects from great distances and to scan huge volumes very rapidly, which contribute much to our understanding of insect migration. Vertical-looking insect monitoring radar (VLR) was developed as a new tool for monitoring high-altitude insect migration in the 1970s. In contrast to the early entomological scanning radar, VLR can provide information about the displacement speed and direction, heading orientation, size and shape of targets. Therefore, VLR has more precise capacity in target identification. Furthermore, VLR systems allow continuous and autonomous monitoring of pest migrations under the control of microcomputer, and this make it practicable to carry out routine monitoring with VLRs. In this article, the history of VLR technologies, their configurations and procedures for signal analysis are reviewed, the limitations and related suggestions are discussed, and finally the perspective of using VLRs in future insect monitoring network is presented.

Key words: Insect, migration, radar entomology, insect monitoring radar, vertical-looking radar, monitoring network