Monopulse Radar Angle Tracking Accuracy with Sum Channel Limiting

The variance of angle tracking error is found for an amplitude-comparison form of monopulse radar when the sum channel contains a limiter prior to the angle error detector. The error expression is valid for any shape of transmitted pulse and any duration of range tracking gate but does assume matched filters in signal processing channels. The procedures used are rigorous and an example of results is worked out for the special case of a rectangular transmitted pulse envelope. It is shown, for rectangular pulses, that achievable angle tracking error variance with sum channel limiting is not more than 2.22 dB larger than the theoretical minimum for any processor and not more than 1.29 dB larger than a similar signal processor that uses a "linear" angle error detector. Results apply for large single-pulse signal-to-noise ratio.     

Filter Selection for Receivers Using Square-Law Detection

A numerical method is described for predicting the detection probability performance of a pulse receiver which uses square-law detection. The method is useful for receivers where the ratio of RF bandwidth to video bandwidth is in the range from 2 to 40; a range where numerical results have previously been hard to obtain. A key feature of the approach is that it takes into account the actual filter transfer functions, pulse envelope shape, and pulse frequency.     

Product Device Analysis for Radar Applications

By applying the theory of two-dimensional Fourier transforms to the response of a product device, results are developed that may be applied to tracking radar range gates, phase detectors, and angle-error detectors. These responses are general in that noises that are present can be nonstationary with arbitrary power spectrum while the radar signal, a pulse stream, can have any envelope shape.     

On Conopulse Radar Theoretical Angle Tracking Accuracy

The Cramer-Rao analysis method is applied to a conopulse radar to determine a lower bound on the variance of angle tracking error. The analysis allows the calculation of the variance independent of the form of the signal processor attached to the antenna. Under reasonable assumptions it is found that angle error variance is larger than that of a similar monopulse system by a factor of 2.     

Missing radar pulse clutter processing

The degradation of conventional clutter processing filters due to missing pulses resulting from RF interference blanking, ambiguous range returns when no filter pulses are used, or eclipsing is described. The effects of a missing pulse on uncompensated and optimum clutter filters are investigated. The maximum improvement factor method and other methods are compared to the optimum filtering. New methods and results using a minimax log energy search method are described and are shown to provide performance and/or implementation complexity advantages     

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.     

Compact AM Signals for Maximum Clutter Rejection

The transmitted signal is assumed to consist of a close succession of rectangular pulses of equal width. A matched filter scheme is employed and a theory is developed for a computer-aided optimization of the envelope of monotone compact signals for maximum rejection of dense clutter of any given distribution in range. Specific results are presented and indeterminate cases are discussed.     

Analysis of Detection Probability for the Acoustooptic Receiver

A numerical method is described for analyzing the performance of an acoustooptic receiver. The method provides output waveforms, probability density functions for samples of the output, and detection probabilities for output samples. The approach is general in that input pulse envelope shapes, pulse offset frequencies, and output rilter magnitude responses are arbitrary. The basic analysis is also independent of the shape of the optical beam and of the photodiode windows.     

Automatic Checkout and Monitoring in the AN TPQ-27 Radar System

This paper describes automatic monitoring equipment built in to a precision tracking radar system to detect and isolate faults. The purpose of the monitoring equipment is to minimize the mean time to repair faults and to exercise the overall system for pre-mission alignment and calibration. In addition, it is used to periodically check for performance degradation in key areas of the system. The paper describes the design approach used to meet the above requirements. Three types of signals are monitored: analog, digital, and switch closure. A list of each type is given and the technique used to monitor each is described. The design approach for pre-mission alignment and calibration is outlined. Tests performed are: RF alignment of the boresight axis, range tracking accuracy, angle servo calibration and accuracy, and receiver figure of merit measurements.     

Reduction of Radar Tracking Errors with Frequency Agility

Frequency agility with random frequency in each pulse gives an improvement in radar angle tracking with a monopulse radar. With a conical-scan tracking radar, the glint error is reduced but fading error can be increased, and the net result must be studied in each case. A theory, usable for calculating angle tracking errors with a frequency agile radar, is given, and two examples showing the error reduction are presented. According to the theory, one part of the glint or fading spectra is ``smeared out' to half the pulse repetition frequency. Another part, the size of which depends on the degree of correlation between pulses, keeps the form of the original spectrum.     

Spectral Energy Requirements and Adjacent-Channel Crosstalk in CAS

Four-frequency channels avoid the prior slot interference that handicaps single-frequency collision avoidance systems of equal message-slot capacity. Crosstalk between adjacent frequency channels is adequately limited If the receiver response to adjacent-channel signals is attenuated at least 52 dB. With 5-MHz channel separation, 48-dB crosstalk rejection was achieved in a test receiver by restricting the RF pulse rise time and decay time to 0.2 ?s minimum. Crosstalk resulting from biphase modulation can be effectively attenuated by limiting the minimum envelope transition time to 0.2 ?s. The effect of pulse rise time and decay time on the energy density spectrum is discussed.     

Application of SMA in Membrane Structure Shape Control

Shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators have found a wide range of applications due to their unique properties such as high force, long stroke, small size, light weight, and silent operation, etc. However, their strong nonlinear properties make them a challenge to achieve accurate actuations. A simple control strategy is presented based on the idea of adjusting the SMA wire temperature as rapidly as possible. This strategy is simple, stable, and requires no hysteresis model or thermal model. The strategy is tested first on tracking displacement outputs, and effects of updating rate and input current on control accuracy are also discussed. It is then used for active shape control of a membrane structure model by adjusting its boundary tensions. Results indicate that under the developed control strategy, SMA wire actuators can offer very good accuracy in tracking displacement outputs and tension outputs. For the membrane structure shape control, the structure shape precision is improved greatly.     

单天基平台测向的空间非合作目标跟踪

针对仅含角度测量信息的单个天基平台可观测性较弱的问题,提出了一种含脉冲机动检测的空间非合作目标跟踪算法,并设计了非合作目标实时跟踪数据处理流程.该算法利用抗差估计技术和UKF（Unscented Kalman Filter,无迹卡尔曼滤波）算法构造目标跟踪滤波器,并综合残差多项式拟合和新息分布特征等方法实现目标机动检测,在天基平台观测信息类型有限和观测几何较差的情况下,可以同时排除孤立野值和成片测量野值的影响,实现非合作机动目标的连续稳定跟踪.数值实验验证了算法的可行性和有效性,也表明了跟踪精度和可靠性与测量精度密切相关.     

The Mercury Laser Altimeter Instrument for the MESSENGER Mission

The Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) is one of the payload science instruments on the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission, which launched on August 3, 2004. The altimeter will measure the round-trip time of flight of transmitted laser pulses reflected from the surface of the planet that, in combination with the spacecraft orbit position and pointing data, gives a high-precision measurement of surface topography referenced to Mercury’s center of mass. MLA will sample the planet’s surface to within a 1-m range error when the line-of-sight range to Mercury is less than 1,200 km under spacecraft nadir pointing or the slant range is less than 800 km. The altimeter measurements will be used to determine the planet’s forced physical librations by tracking the motion of large-scale topographic features as a function of time. MLA’s laser pulse energy monitor and the echo pulse energy estimate will provide an active measurement of the surface reflectivity at 1,064 nm. This paper describes the instrument design, prelaunch testing, calibration, and results of postlaunch testing.     

Target Track Pulse Scheduling

The problem of scheduling radar tracking pulses in a dense target environment where the position estimation error must be constrained to avoid false return with track correlations is considered. The problem is to schedule n fixed energy pulses such that the rangerate error is minimized at some final time subject to the constraint that the position error will be smaller than some value for the whole time interval. For a fixed time interval, the problem of finding the minimum number of radar measurements required to satisfy the position estimation error constraint is solved. A closed-form solution for the optimum schedule is given in the case where the number of pulses is equal to the minimum number of pulses. For cases where one extra pulse is available, a solution method is described and an algorithm is derived.     

Surface-improvement mechanism of hybrid electrochemical discharge process using variable-amplitude pulses

Superalloys are commonly used in aircraft manufacturing; however, the requirements for high surface quality and machining accuracy make them difficult to machine. In this study, a hybrid electrochemical discharge process using variable-amplitude pulses is proposed to achieve this target. In this method, electrochemical machining (ECM) and electrical discharge machining (EDM) are unified into a single process using a sequence of variable-amplitude pulses such that the machining process realizes both good surface finish and high machining accuracy. Furthermore, the machining mechanism of the hybrid electrochemical discharge process using variable-amplitude pulses is studied. The mechanism is investigated by observations of machining waveforms and machined surface. It is found that, with a high-frequency transformation between high- and low-voltage waveforms within a voltage cycle, the machining mechanism is frequently transformed from EDM to pure ECM. The critical discharge voltage is 40 V. When pulse voltages greater than 40 V are applied, the machining accuracy is good; however, the surface has defects such as numerous discharge craters. High machining accuracy is maintained when high-voltage pulses are replaced by low-voltage pulses to enhance electrochemical dissolution. The results indicate that the proposed hybrid electrochemical discharge process using variable-amplitude pulses can yield high-quality surfaces with high machining accuracy.     

钛合金钣金件脉冲电流辅助热压成形精度控制

针对钛合金钣金件冷加工成形精度低、热成形机成形成本高的问题,提出一种采用脉冲电流辅助热压成形工艺。以TC1钛合金U型件为对象,研究了脉冲电流辅助热压成形工艺对钛合金钣金件的缺陷、尺寸精度及力学性能的影响。结果表明,脉冲电流加热可提高成形效率,当脉冲电流密度为9.2A/mm^2,合模速度为15mm/s时,补偿了成形过程的热量损失,使钛合金钣金件保持在良好的成形温度区间,增加其成形极限,得到零件表面质量良好、无裂纹。在成形过程中,随着成形压力、保压时间、模具预热温度的升高,零件的尺寸精度逐渐提高,当成形压力10t、保压时间10s、模具不预热时,零件的尺寸精度即可达到±0.2mm。脉冲电流辅助热压成形后零件的晶粒尺寸比热成形机成形的细小,且力学性能也较好。     

Neural network-based model predictive control with fuzzy-SQP optimization for direct thrust control of turbofan engine

A nonlinear model predictive control method based on fuzzy-Sequential Quadratic Programming(SQP) for direct thrust control is proposed in this paper for the sake of improving the accuracy of thrust control. The designed control system includes four parts, namely a predictive model, rolling optimization, online correction, and feedback correction. Considering the strong nonlinearity of engine, a predictive model is established by Back Propagation(BP) neural network for the entire flight envelope,...     

Contiguous pulse binary integration analysis

The probability of detecting m or more pulses contiguously-that is, in a row-from a pulse train of n pulses is determined when the detection of each pulse is an independent Bernoulli trial with probability p. While a general closed-form expression for this probability is not known, we present an analytical procedure that gives the exact expression for the probability of interest for any particular case. We also present simple asymptotic expressions for these probabilities and develop bounds on the probability that the number of pulses that must be observed before m contiguous detections is greater than or less than some particular number. We consider the implications for binary integration in radar and electronic warfare problems     

Mitigating Range Ambiguity in High PRF Radar using Inter-Pulse Binary Coding

The paper proposes a way to increase the energy within a coherent processing interval (CPI) using more pulses instead of longer pulses. Long coded pulses result in masking targets at close range and poor Doppler tolerance. Increasing the number of pulses implies high pulse repetition frequency (PRF), which suffers from range ambiguity and target folding. These drawbacks of a high PRF can be mitigated by inter-pulse coding. The approach suggested here should be attractive for close and mid range applications of radar, ground penetrating radar, ultrasound imaging, and more.