Analysis and Design of Antennas for Air Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems

The analysis and design procedure of an antenna for a CW Doppler radar system being developed for pilot warning of midair collision hazards is presented. The antenna consists of two vertical arrays of half-wavelength dipoles mounted near a circular conducting cylinder. Each vertical array is composed of three vertical dipoles. Each array provides relatively uniform illumination (2-3 dB) in the forward 180 angular segment of the horizontal plane and approximately + 10-150 coverage in the vertical plane. The antenna could be used in a two-mode operation, either in a standard monopulse radar system (sum and difference amplitude patterns) or in a system where amplitude and phase are the measurable quantities.     

A Microwave Hologram Radar System

An airborne microwave hologram radar system has been developed which is a two-dimensional analog to optical holography. The field of view of the radar is directly below and to either side of the aircraft. Resolution is realized in the along-track direction by utilizing the synthetic aperture technique, and in the cross-track direction by means of a phased receiving array. The theory of operation is summarized, the demonstration system is described, and results for both the normal and contouring modes of operation are presented.     

Comparison between monostatic and bistatic antenna configurationsfor STAP

The unique characteristics of bistatic radar operation on the performance of airborne/spaceborne moving target indicator (MTI) radars that use space-time adaptive processing (STAP) are discussed. It has been shown that monostatic STAP radar has the following properties. 1) For a horizontal flight path and a planar Earth the curves of constant clutter Doppler (isodops) are hyperbolas. 2) For a sidelooking antenna geometry the clutter Doppler is range independent. 3) Clutter trajectories in the cosφ-F plane (F=normalized Doppler) are in general ellipses (or straight lines for a sidelooking array). We demonstrate that these well-known properties are distorted by the displacement between transmitter and receiver in a bistatic configuration. It is shown that even for the sidelooking array geometry the clutter Doppler is range-dependent which requires adaptation of the STAP processor for each individual range gate. Conclusions for the design of STAP processors are drawn     

Analysis of array errors and a short-time processor in airbornephased array radars

Array errors are inherent in a realistic phased array radar system. The influence of array errors on the clutter degrees of freedom and the clutter subspace in an airborne phased array radar is analyzed. Based on the presented theoretic results, a method of short-time processing followed by coherent integration is proposed for clutter suppression in airborne phased array radars. It can approximate the two-dimensional optimal processor well even in the presence of array errors, clutter fluctuations and aircraft drift, with a considerable saving in computations     

Hard Limiting in Synthetic Aperture Signal Processing

In synthetic aperture radar a large linear phased array is formed from the rapid movement of a single element through each position in the array. Storage and coherent combining of the successive radar echoes are central to the array-forming process. Optical processing is the most common technique because of the efficiency with which Fourier transformation may be accomplished with simple optics. Real-time operation, however, requires all-electronic processing, which is difficult to accomplish because of the huge quantity of data to be manipulated. Dynamic range compression by hard limiting may ease the problem by reducing the number of bits per frame. The effects of hard limiting are analyzed in this paper. It is shown that large targets simultaneously illuminated by the radar antenna will produce image targets or ghosts displaced in angle. Statistically homogeneous clutter will "linearize" the hard-limited receiver and suppress the ghosts without loss in contrast, as does thermal noise if it is larger than the target echoes. Pulse compression reduces the probability of images from prominent targets. Judicious choice of the pulse-compression waveform is a powerful tool for destroying coherent buildup of images from all large targets not in the same range resolution cell. Linear FM, the most common choice, unfortunately does not exhibit this desirable property.     

Radar modelling to improve CFAR performance in the littoral

Littoral operation of radars poses severe signal processing difficulties due to the highly stressing, inhomogeneous clutter. This report describes an initial investigation into the feasibility of utilising site specific radar modelling to provide a localized estimate of the clutter statistics which can then be used to predict the required threshold to maintain a given false alarm rate. The technique has been applied to littoral clutter recordings obtained from the experimental S-band phase array radar, MESAR2. Results are presented for the technique in comparison with a conventional, non-adaptive, cell averaging CFAR. The paper concludes that significant performance enhancements are possible through the use of this new technique.     

Improved CFAR performance in the littoral

Littoral operation of radars poses severe signal processing difficulties due to the highly stressing, inhomogeneous clutter. This report describes an initial investigation into the feasibility of utilising site-specific radar modelling to provide a localised estimate of the clutter statistics which can then be used to predict the required threshold to maintain a given false alarm rate. The technique has been applied to littoral clutter recordings obtained from the experimental S-band phased array radar, MESAR2. Results are presented for the technique in comparison with a conventional, non-adaptive, cell averaging CFAR. This paper concludes that significant performance enhancements are possible through the use of this new technique.     

Noise-correlating radar based on retrodirective antennas

A new retrodirective antenna-based search radar system has been introduced. The suggested system uses a noise correlation technique to detect the presence and the direction of the target. Simulation and analytical results show an order of magnitude improvement in acquisition time of the radar when compared with a phased array antenna-based radar system with the same specifications, except transmit power. To the best knowledge of the authors, no radar of a comparable acquisition time has been designed to this date. Power versus acquisition time tradeoff has been compared with a phased array radar for evaluating performance of the system. The radar is self-tracking due to retrodirectivity of the antenna array, and is much easier to implement, as it does not require any phase shifters etc.     

Robust space-time adaptive processing for airborne radar in nonhomogeneous clutter environments

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) holds tremendous potential for the new generation airborne surveillance radar, in which the phased array antennas and pulse Doppler processing mode are adopted. A new STAP approach using the multiple-beam and multiple Doppler channels is presented here for airborne phased array radar. The approach with space-time multiple-beam (STMB) architecture is robust to array errors and has very low system degrees of freedom (DOFs). Hence, it has low sample support requirement and it is very suitable for the practical planar phased array radar under nonhomogeneous clutter environments. Meanwhile, a new nonhomogeneous detector (NHD) based on the correlation dimension (CD) is also proposed here, which is used as an effective method to screen tracing data prior to detection processing. It can further improve the performance of the STAP approach in the severely nonhomogeneous clutter environments. Therefore, a scheme that incorporates the correlation dimension nonhomogeneity detector (CD-NHD) with the STMB is recommended, which we term CD-NHD-STMB. The experimental simulation results indicate that: 1) the STMB processor is robust to array element error and has high performance under nonhomogeneous clutter environments; 2) the CD-NHD is also effective on the nonhomogeneous clutter. As a result, the CD-NHD-STMB scheme is robust to array element error and nonhomogeneous clutter, and therefore available for airborne phased array radar applications.     

一种MIMO雷达幅相误差估计方法

 针对单基地相关多输入多输出(MIMO)雷达中存在的阵列幅相误差问题进行了研究。给出了单基地相关MIMO雷达的阵列模型,并提出了一种MIMO雷达幅相误差估计方法。利用发射正交信号对阵列接收信号进行匹配滤波,可分离得到类似传统阵列的"虚拟阵列",利用分时信源数据将该阵列中真实导向矢量中信源波达方向(DOA)引起的相位与幅相误差分离开,通过构造代价函数得到波达方向估计值,进而分别得到发射阵与接收阵的幅相误差的估计值,同时给出了误差引入量分析。最后通过仿真验证了该方法的有效性。本文介绍的方法简单可行,适用于任意构型MIMO雷达的幅相误差估计。     

基于稀疏随机阵列配置的CS-MIMO雷达感知矩阵构造

压缩感知(CS)理论中的感知矩阵在观测数据获取和信号重建过程中起关键性作用。目前,大部分研究通过引入高斯随机矩阵作为测量矩阵实现压缩观测,这类测量矩阵对硬件要求很高,工程实现困难。提出了一种基于稀疏随机阵列配置的压缩感知-多输入多输出(CS-MIMO)雷达中的感知矩阵构造方法,当MIMO雷达阵元配置为满足某种概率分布的稀疏随机阵列时,发射与接收导引矢量的Kronecker积能够起到压缩测量的作用。从理论上分析了所构造的感知矩阵的归一化互相关系数、Gram矩阵以及阵列方向图之间的内在联系,并证明了当随机阵元位置满足均匀分布时所构造的感知矩阵满足压缩感知重构条件。在这种稀疏随机阵列配置方式下,既可以避免额外引入随机测量矩阵,又能减少所需的阵元个数,从而大大降低CS-MIMO雷达系统复杂度。仿真实验表明,该方法具有较低的感知矩阵归一化互相关系数,与满阵CS-MIMO雷达相比能够在减少阵元个数的同时获得良好的重构性能,且使重构所需运算量大大降低。     

STAP with medium PRF mode for non-side-looking airborne radar

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) has been widely discussed for airborne radar systems to improve the system performance of detecting targets. This is especially true for airborne early warning (AEW) radar, which should find long-range and small radar cross section (RCS) targets such as the stealth aircraft and missiles. However, in existing airborne radar literature, STAP is mainly considered for clutter and jamming rejection in side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) applications. There have been fewer discussions on airborne radar with non-side-ways looking array radar (non-SLAR). The STAP of non-SLAR such as forward looking array radar is also very important and can not be avoided for airborne radar to detect targets in all directions. The STAP of the non-SLAR is studied here. A scheme has been proposed, which is processed by the way of STAP combined with multiple staggered medium pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs). We further study the selection of PRFs in order to make the scheme more available for non-SLAR radar. We analyze two typical non-SLAR cases, i.e., inclined-sideways looking array and forward looking array. We examine this scheme by comparing the performances of three processing systems under the criteria of range-velocity blind zone minimization. Computer simulation results show the multiple-PRFs STAP scheme is feasible for non-SLAR and can be applied to phased-array AEW radar systems     

基于天线安装的菱形翼无人机翼型优化设计

以菱形翼布局高空长航时(HALE)传感器无人机研究为背景,分析了翼型内部安装平面相控阵雷达天线的基本原理。通过推导雷达探测性能的估算方程,建立了在翼型中安装平面相控阵雷达天线的数学模型。采用数值模拟的方法,对典型雷诺数下的RAE2822翼型的气动特性进行了研究并与试验数据进行了对比,验证了使用有限体积法k-ωSST(Shear Stress Transport)湍流模型求解雷诺平均Navier-Stokes方程在这一状态下的可靠性和适用性;同时对不同厚度的NACA 64A系列翼型的流场结构和流动机理进行了分析,在此基础上提出了一种满足平面相控阵雷达天线安装情况下翼型的优化设计思想。优化结果验证了这一设计思想的可行性。     

Distributed Airborne Array Concepts

The improvement in SNR and detection range due to distributing an antenna array throughout the airframe and skin of an aircraft is examined. SNR formulas for three system configurations are presented and compared with that of a conventional, monostatic radar. Examples given in the paper show detection range increases as large as a factor of 4. Three additional potential advantages of the distributed array are an increase in spatial signal processing capability, an improvement in azimuthal resolution, and a potential reduction in transmitter power for fixed radar Performance so as to reduce the probability of intercept.     

二维嵌套混合MIMO相控阵雷达接收阵列设计

针对二维混合多输入多输出（MIMO）相控阵雷达发射阵列子阵分割带来的自由度损失问题,提出一种基于二维嵌套阵列的二维混合MIMO相控阵雷达接收阵列设计新方法。首先,给出一种由稀疏阵列和密集阵列构成的嵌套阵接收阵列的二维混合MIMO相控阵雷达信号模型;其次,通过对接收信号的协方差矩阵进行Khatri-Rao乘积处理,得到阵元位置差的差异阵列,形成接收阵元数目的虚拟扩展;最后,通过空间平滑处理进行波达方向估计。仿真实验表明,与传统二维混合MIMO相控阵雷达相比,所提方法在不增加实际阵元数目的情况下可以有效扩展虚拟阵元数目,提高雷达阵列自由度,进而提高二维混合MIMO相控阵雷达波达方向估计精度。     

MIMO radar: snake oil or good idea?

MIMO communication is theoretically superior to conventional communication under certain conditions, and MIMO communication also appears to be practical and cost-effective in the real world for some applications. It is natural to suppose that the same is true for MIMO radar, but the situation is not so clear. Researchers claim many advantages of MIMO radar relative to phased array radars (e.g., better detection performance, better angular resolution, better angular measurement accuracy, improved robustness against RFI, ECM, multipath, etc.). We will evaluate such assertions from a system engineering viewpoint. In particular, there are serious trade-offs of MIMO vs. phased array radars relative to cost, system complexity, and risk considering numerous real world effects that are not included in most theoretical analyses. Moreover, in many cases one can achieve essentially the same radar system improvement with phased array radars using simpler, less expensive, and less risky algorithms. We evaluate roughly a dozen asserted advantages of MIMO radar relative to phased arrays.     

机载预警雷达技术发展探析

分析了世界各国预警雷达发展概况,分别对一至四代预警雷达的功能等进行了研究;论述了新一代预警雷达的工作原理、雷达组成、功能、工作过程和技术特点;指出了机载预警雷达未来发展的关键技术,包括有源相控阵雷达技术、数字阵列雷达技术、共形相控阵技术,双/多频段雷达技术及先进的信号处理技术等。     

ALGORITHMS FOR TRACKING MANEUVERING TARGET WITH PHASED ARRAY RADAR

Ｓｉｎｃｅｐｈａｓｅｄａｒａｙｒａｄａｒｃａｎａｌｏｃａｔｅｔｈｅｒａｄａｒｒｅｓｏｕｒｃｅｓｆｌｅｘｉｂｌｙ，ｉｔｈａｓｔｈｅｐｏｔｅｎｔｉａｌｔｏｆｕｒｔｈｅｒｉｍｐｒｏｖｅｔｈｅｐｅｒｆｏｒｍａｎｃｅｏｆｔｒａｃｋｉｎｇｍａｎｅｕｖｅｒｉｎｇｔ...     

与空时二维自适应滤波兼容的单脉冲测角新方法

针对机载相控阵雷达系统提出了一种空时二维自适应单脉冲测角方法 ,当存在阵元和通道幅相误差时它仍具有较高的测角精度。还给出了一种稳健的自适应和、差波束增益归一化方法 ,并讨论了所提方法的简化兼容实现方案。最后给出了基于高保真雷达杂波模拟数据的仿真实验结果