Characterizing radar emissions using a robust countermeasurereceiver

The author presents a high-sensitivity signal processing approach for detecting and estimating the angle of arrival (AOA), frequency and pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of multiple radar emitters using broadband interferometers. Two time series are generated using information embedded in the sampled cross correlation of the signals obtained from three antenna elements (i.e. two base legs). The phase and amplitude of a complex Fourier transform of these two time series with respect to the sampling clock are used to estimate the AOA and PRF of pulsed emitters     

基于模拟器的单脉冲雷达幅相修正方法研究

以某型单脉冲测量雷达为研究对象,深入分析研究幅相一致性修正的必要性和修正原理,通过理论分析与公式推导,经过大量的试验验证,提出一种基于目标模拟的单脉冲测量雷达无塔幅相修正方法。该方法实现后,已成功应用于该型单脉冲测量雷达,解决了传统幅相修正方法受外界因素影响大的技术难题,同时降低了建造成本和维护难度,取得了良好的军事和经济效益。     

Performance Analysis of Monopulse Receivers for Secondary Surveillance Radar

In modern secondary surveillance radar (SSR) the monopulse technique is currently introduced for the measurement of the azimuth of the targets. The monopulse technique is based on a suitable processing of signals received by a multiple antenna. In SSR the signals are generated by a transponder on the aircraft as replies to interrogations from ground equipment, and consist of trains of pulses. The monopulse measurements can be carried out on the basis of a single pulse from each train, so that it provides a great number of azimuth estimates. Many monopulse measurement devices exist, corresponding to different processing techniques. From the point of view of accuracy and precision, their behaviors differ with respect to the sources of errors, both internal (noise and imperfect calibrations) and external (interference and propagation effects). The four main types of monopulse receivers are analyzed here with respect to the effects of the internal error sources on the resulting measurement accuracy. After an introductory discussion of the performances of the receivers, a detailed analysis is carried out on the basis of a general mathematical model. The results are given in an analytical form and in some comprehensive diagrams.     

Thermal Noise Errors in DF Monopulse Systems Having Log Amplifiers

An analysis of the effects of thermal noise on the accuracy of direction finding (DF) monopulse systems which employ logarithmic amplifiers is presented. Numerical results are presented which indicate that a simple model may be used to compute rms thermal errors for a wide range of signal levels. Analytical results obtained in the limit of large signal-to-noise ratios are compared with standard results used to analyze monopulse systems employing automatic gain control (AGC) circuitry instead of log amplifiers.     

Angle estimation for two unresolved targets with monopulse radar

Most present-day radar systems use monopulse techniques to extract angular measurements of sunbeam accuracy. The familiar "monopulse ratio" is a very effective means to derive the angle of a single target within a radar beam. For the simultaneous estimation of the angles of two closely-spaced targets, a modification on the monopulse ratio was derived in (Blair and Pearce, 2001), while (Sinha et al., 2002) presented a maximum likelihood (ML) technique via numerical search. In this paper it is shown that the ML solution can in fact be found explicitly, and the numerical search of ((Sinha et al., 2002) is unnecessary. However, the ML solution requires the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each target to be known, and hence we generalize it so it requires only the relative SNR. Several versions of expectation maximization (EM) joint angle estimators are also derived, these differing in the degree to which prior information on SNR and on beam pattern are assumed. The performances of the different direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimators for unresolved targets are studied via Monte Carlo, and it is found that most have similar performance: this is remarkable since the use of prior information (SNR, relative SNR, beam pattern) varies widely between them. There is, however, considerable performance variability as a function of the two targets' off-boresight angles. A simple combined technique that fuses the results from different approaches is thus proposed, and it performs well uniformly.     

An Analysis of Wide-Band Microwave Monopulse Direction-Finding Techniques

This paper presents the concept, theory of operation, characteris tic equations, and error analysis of four wide-band monopulse techniques. The basic techniques described, which include pure amplitude monopulse, phase and amplitude monopulse (two-and three-channel configurations), and pure phase monopulse interferometer, are particularly applicable to monopulse direction finding systems that require frequency coverage over several octaves and open-loop angle bearing of several degrees. Sufficient detail and working formulas are included to permit a trade-off analysis to be made between the direction-finding techniques for selection in specific hardware applications.     

Statistical description of monopulse parameters for trackingRayleigh targets

The conditional probability density function (pdf) is developed for each monopulse measurement of a Rayleigh target by conditioning the pdf of the complex monopulse ratio on the measured amplitude of the sum signal. The conditional pdf is used to develop the conditional Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) for any unbiased estimator of the direction-of-arrival (DOA). Conditional maximum likelihood (CML) and conditional method of moments (CMM) estimators of the DOA are developed along with estimates of the variances associated with the monopulse ratio and DOA estimate. Using simulation results, the performances of the CML and CMM estimators of the DOA are compared with the performance of standard monopulse ratio and the performances of the variance estimators are also studied     

Analysis of queuing behavior of automatic ESM systems

Radar electronic support measures (ESM) systems detect active emitters in a given area and determine their identities and bearings. The high arrival rate of radar pulses in dense emitter environments demands fast automatic processing of arriving pulses so that the ESM system can fulfill its functions properly in real time. Yet, the performance analysis of automatic ESM system in real life Is difficult since both pulse arrivals and widths can be specified only probabilistically. The success of queuing theory in many applications such as computer communication networks and flow-control has encouraged designers to utilize queuing theory in qualifying and judging the performance of automatic ESM systems in dense emitter environments. The queuing behavior of these systems is analytically evaluated under different service disciplines and elaborate computer simulations validate the results. The analysis involves statistical modeling of arrival and departure processes as well as distribution of service times. It permits estimating the blocking probability due to high arrival rates of intercepted radar pulses or due to limited speed of the deinterleaver processor. Queuing analysis is shown to be quite useful to quantitatively assess tradeoffs in ESM systems design     

反向交叉眼对单脉冲雷达干扰效果分析及仿真验证

交叉眼干扰被认为是对单脉冲雷达干扰最有效的方式之一。基于雷达方程建立了隔离平台回波下的两点源反向交叉眼干扰模型，推导了交叉眼干扰欺骗角一般性公式，研究了干扰机发射天线间距、干扰平台旋转角和干扰机相对雷达之间距离等参数变化对角度欺骗效果的影响，并依据单脉冲雷达接收机获取角度的信息处理流程，建立了单脉冲雷达接收机仿真模型，对交叉眼数学模型的正确性和局限性进行了分析。研究结果表明：单脉冲雷达越靠近两点源交叉眼干扰机中心线、干扰机两发射天线间距越大、与干扰机距离越近时，角度欺骗效果越好；单脉冲雷达的欺骗角度随着与干扰机距离的接近呈指数式增大；数学模型和仿真模型计算的单脉冲雷达角度误差最大值随干扰机天线与雷达天线中心连线的夹角的增大呈指数化增长。研究可为交叉眼干扰工程设计作参考。     

Complex Indicated Angles Applied to Unresolved Radar Targets and Multipath

The off-axis angle indicated by a conventional monopulse radar is only the real part of a "complex indicated angle." The presence of unresolved targets or multipath distorts the real part (causing an erroneous angle indication) and also produces an imaginary part, which can easily be measured by processing the normally unused quadrature-phase component of the difference signal. Under certain conditions the angles, amplitude ratio, and relative phase of two unresolved targets can theoretically be determined by meas urements of the complex indicated angle on two pulses separated by a short interval. In the special case of multipath, known relationships between the unresolved target and image theoretically permit determination of target elevation with a single pulse.     

Monopulse Resolution of Interferometric Ambiguities

Ambiguities in interferometers with high angular accuracy must be resolved to achieve a practical system design. A new technique for ambiguity resolution is described and is based on monopulse circuitry used with the interferometric elements. The overall angular accuracy of the system is achieved by the interferometer; the angular accuracy of the monopulse subsystem is used to resolve interferometric ambiguities. An expression for the probability of correct ambiguity resolution is derived as a function of element size and monopulse accuracy which indicates that high probability of ambiguity resolution results when the size of the interferometric elements are a fraction of the interferometric baseline. Finally, a comparison between conventional monopulse and interferometric system designs is made for the three principal parameters, signal sensitivity, angular accuracy, and field of view, that dictate the appropriate choice for a particular application. Interferometric systems are more appropriate than monopulse systems for those applications in which angular accuracy and field of view are more important than signal sensitivity.     

机载雷达中的单脉冲技术

 本文总结机载雷达中单脉冲技术的研究和应用,着重讨论幅度比较系统的关键技术,给出有关数据。 机载雷达中的单脉冲技术着眼于抗干扰性能和特殊应用。这些应用包括空对地测距、角分辨力改进、地形防撞。本文阐述了这些特殊应用。     

Monopulse-radar tracking of swerling III-IV targets using multiple observations

This paper proposes a novel statistical prediction of monopulse errors (Levanon, 1988) for a radar Swerling III-IV target embedded in noise or noise jamming where multiple observations are available. First, the study of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the complex monopulse ratio for a Swerling III-IV target embedded in spatially white noise allows us to extend the use of the MLE practical approximate form introduced by Mosca (1969) for Swerling 0-I-II cases. Afterward, we derive analytical formulas for both the mean and variance of the MLE in approximate form conditioned by the usual detection step performed on the sum channel of a monopulse antenna. Last, we provide a comparison of target direction of arrival (DOA) estimation performance based on monopulse ratio estimation as a function of the Swerling model in the context of a multifunction radar.     

Correlation between horizontal and vertical monopulse measurements

Many radar systems use the monopulse ratio to extract angle of arrival (AOA) measurements in both azimuth and elevation angles. The accuracies of each such measurement are reasonably well known: each measurement is, conditioned on the sum-signal return, Gaussian-distributed with calculable bias (relative to the true AOA), and variance. However, we note that the two monopulse ratios are functions of basic radar measurements that are not entirely independent, specifically in that the sum signal is common to both. The effect of this is that the monopulse ratios are dependent, and a simple explicit expression is given for their correlation; this is of considerable interest when the measurements are supplied to a tracking algorithm that requires a measurement covariance matrix. The system performance improvement when this is taken into account is quantified: while it makes little difference for a tracking radar with small pointing errors, there are more substantial gains when a target is allowed to stray within the beam, as with a rotating (track-while-scan) radar or when a single radar dwell interrogates two or more targets at different ranges. But in any case, the correct covariance expression is so simple that there is little reason not to use it. We additionally derive the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) on joint azimuth/elevation angle estimation and discover that it differs only slightly from the covariance matrix corresponding to the individual monopulse ratios. Hence, using the individual monopulse ratios and their simple joint accuracy expression is an adequate and quick approximation of the optimal maximum likelihood procedure for single resolved targets.     

Noise Angle Accuracy of Several Monopulse Architectures

Rigorous analysis of four monopulse radar architectures has been conducted to develop the practical angle-tracking accuracy of the systems due to noise. The word ?practical? is used to imply that the systems may have range gates of arbitrary duration and may transmit pulses with arbitrarily shaped envelopes. The accuracy measure used is the mean-squared error (variance) in angle tracking. The four systems considered differ from each other according to the locations of the range gates and ?matched filters? in their architectures.     

Difference beam aided target detection in monopulse radar

The classical detection step in a monopulse radar system is based on the sum beam only,the performance of which is not optimal when target is not at the beam center. Target detection aided by the difference beam can improve the performance at this case. However, the existing difference beam aided target detectors have the problem of performance deterioration at the beam center, which has limited their application in real systems. To solve this problem, two detectors are proposed in this paper. Assuming the monopulse ratio is known, a generalized likelihood ratio test(GLRT) detector is derived, which can be used when targeting information on target direction is available. A practical dual-stage detector is proposed for the case that the monopulse ratio is unknown. Simulation results show that performances of the proposed detectors are superior to that of the classical detector.     

比相单脉冲雷达测角与角闪烁研究

比相单脉冲雷达采用和差通道接收信号比相的方法测角。一般认为,雷达事实上并不是在测量目标的方向,而是在测量目标的角闪烁方向。从特殊的两点目标出发,分析了单点目标和复杂目标下比相单脉冲雷达和差通道方式测角的原理与内在异同,探讨了比相单脉冲雷达测角与角闪烁的关系,提出有关雷达测角的新的观点。     

Unresolved Rayleigh target detection using monopulse measurements

When the returns from two or more targets interfere (i.e., the signals are not resolved in the frequency or time domains) in a monopulse radar system, the direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimate indicated by the monopulse ratio can wander far beyond the angular separation of the targets. Generalized maximum likelihood (GML) detection of the presence of unresolved Rayleigh targets is developed with probability density functions (pdfs) conditioned on the measured amplitude of the target echoes. The Neyman-Pearson detection algorithm uses both the in-phase and quadrature portions of the monopulse ratio and requires no a priori knowledge of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or DOA of either target. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are given along with simulation results that illustrate the performance and application of the algorithm