Multipath interferometry technique for airborne array calibration

A new technique is developed to compensate multiple-wavelength distortion in airborne antenna arrays. This approach exploits the phase information in microwave reflections from arbitrary terrain. To handle reflections incident over a broad angle, a range-Doppler preprocessor is used in each element channel to resolve wavefronts incident simultaneously from different directions. The phase information for each direction of arrival is compared between elements and processed by optimal estimators to determine the phase corrections needed to compensate the distortion. To develop the estimators, a statistical model of the complex baseband terrain reflections is developed. This is in turn used to generate conditional probability densities involving the range Doppler observations and the parameters to be estimated. These densities are subsequently used to develop minimum variance and maximum likelihood estimators. The new estimators use additional information that has not been exploited by previous techniques and therefore provide enhanced performance     

Performance analysis of conformal conical arrays for airborne vehicles

Conformal array apertures have great potential for providing high performance, low weight systems with little or no impact to the aerodynamic design of the air vehicle. A performance analysis of conformal conical arrays for a national airborne radar application is presented. The conical array geometry is chosen for its similarity to an aircraft or missile nosecone. Performance capabilities are analyzed for a number of antenna performance parameters including scan volume, sidelobe levels, grating lobes, beamwidth, directivity, element count, and cross-polarization     

高分影像辅助下的航空高光谱严密几何检校方法

 惯性测量单元(IMU)与传感器视准轴的偏心角和偏心矢量是造成航空线阵列高光谱数据几何校正误差的主要原因之一。在分析偏心角与偏心矢量误差来源之后提出该误差由IMU主轴与传感器主轴的角度偏差、测区固定偏差、GPS中心与传感器投影中心相对偏差组成,在此基础上建立了较为严密的检校模型。针对模型解算时需要大量高精度控制点的问题,提出了一种高分影像辅助下的亚像元精度控制点自动提取方法。通过多地区、多传感器高光谱航测实验表明,亚像元精度控制点能有效提高模型解算精度。新检校模型可获得亚像元校正精度,推扫式传感器——应用型机载成像光谱仪(AISA)建模中误差约为0.39个像元,摆扫式传感器——实用型模块化成像光谱仪(OMIS)建模中误差约为0.23个像元,校正后的影像可直接进行拼接。     

基于通道校准和HMM的机载雷达健康状态评估

性能退化与间歇故障是机载雷达健康状态的重要反映。针对传统机载雷达健康评估方法缺乏整机级的监测指标、未能综合考虑性能退化和间歇故障,传统BIT电路难以监测间歇故障等工程难题,提出了基于通道校准链路,综合运用通道校准仿真技术、正态云、HMM建立起健康状态评估流程。首先,对通道误差与间歇故障进行分析,得到4类校正系数,建立误差与间歇故障注入仿真流程;然后,基于正态云,利用校正系数的样本方差来表征雷达系统的健康状态,提出统一健康模型,并给出HMM拓扑结构与参数设计方法;最后,建立起基于数据驱动的评估流程并开展应用研究。仿真实验验证了误差和间歇故障仿真流程的可行性、健康状态评估方法的有效性,可获得大于95%的评估准确率;应用案例表明所提方法可行,能解决工程上机载雷达健康状态评估的问题。     

Localization performance of arrays subject to phase errors

The passive localisation of radiating sources using an array subject to random perturbations in sensor phases is presented. All source signals as well as additive noises observed at the sensors are assumed to be independent identically distributed zero-mean Gaussian random processes. Cramer-Rao bounds are derived for source bearings and ranges for the phase errors at each sensor. It is shown that accurate phase calibration can be achieved when the number of sources exceeds a certain minimum. The locations of the calibrating sources need not be known a priori and need only satisfy mild regularity conditions. A calibration procedure is proposed which uses maximum-likelihood techniques     

Time and phase synchronization using clutter observations in airborne distributed coherent aperture radars

Airborne Distributed Coherent Aperture Radar(ADCAR) is one of the most promising next-generation radars to significantly improve target detection and discrimination abilities. However, time and phase synchronization among unit radars should be done before an ADCAR is intended to cohere on a potential target. To address this problem, a time and phase synchronization technique using clutter observations is proposed in this paper. Clutter returns from different azimuths and elevations on the surfac...     

New concepts for airborne gravity measurement

A fundamental survey of vehicle mounted gravimeters shows the superposition from the gravity and the kinematical acceleration due to item modification. The particular problems of airborne gravimetry lie in the presence of relatively strong disturbances due to air turbulence. The vehicle acceleration caused in this manner is from high dynamics and up to a factor of 10⁶ greater than the anomaly signal (local changes of acceleration due to the earth's gravitation). Thus, the technically scientific problem of utilizing gravimeters in airplanes lies in a suitable compensation for the vehicle's acceleration. The measurement methods applied reduce the high frequency disturbance signal with the aid of a low-pass filter. These methods are restricted only for the localization of very large anomalies. The required resolution for an air gravimeter cannot be reached only through a direct low-pass or band-pass filtering, since the frequency ranges of the disturbance and the anomaly overlap. A clear improvement of the resolution requires completely new concepts. For separating gravity and kinematical acceleration, there must be further sensors that are not influenced by gravity, e.g. altimeter and the Global Positioning System (GPS). An overall system, into which the individual sensors are integrated and associated via suitable complementary filtering with each other, allows it to register gravity with a higher resolution than is presently possible.     

Kalman filtering for matrix estimation

A general discrete-time Kalman filter (KF) for state matrix estimation using matrix measurements is presented. The new algorithm evaluates the state matrix estimate and the estimation error covariance matrix in terms of the original system matrices. The proposed algorithm naturally fits systems which are most conveniently described by matrix process and measurement equations. Its formulation uses a compact notation for aiding both intuition and mathematical manipulation. It is a straightforward extension of the classical KF, and includes as special cases other matrix filters that were developed in the past. Beyond the analytical value of the matrix filter, it is shown through various examples arising in engineering problems that this filter can be computationally more efficient than its vectorized version.     

High-power Ka-band TWTs for airborne radars

Litton EDD is developing a new class of Ka-band traveling-wave tubes (TWTs) that use a novel integral-polepiece folded-waveguide circuit to generate peak and average powers up to 1,500 watts. Rugged and highly reliable, this new technology is especially suited for airborne radars. Ongoing developments to increase the average power, the bandwidth and the frequency may be useful for future designs     

An alternate algorithm for discrete-time filtering

The discrete-time Kalman filter is an optimal estimator for the states of a linear, stochastic system. It assumes that measurements are linear combinations of the states, and all disturbances are Gaussian. The influence diagram, a decision analysis tool that provides an algorithm for discrete-time filtering equivalent to the Kalman filter when the influence diagram represents Gaussian random variables, is discussed. The influence diagram algorithm is a factored form of the Kalman filter, similar to other factored forms such as the U-D filter. Compared with the Kalman filter, it offers improved numerical properties. Compared with other factored forms, it offers a reduced computational load     

随机集的概率假设密度粒子滤波

多目标跟踪问题中,当目标数已知时,可以用概率数据互联(PDA)或联合概率数据互联(JPDA)算法。而当目标数未知或随时间变化时,需要对不同目标数的跟踪进行比较。可以把目标集看作随机集进行讨论,目标数N是随机变量。随机集的跟踪通过有限集统计(FISST)理论来完成。文中讨论了用粒子滤波实现跟踪随机集的方法。实验表明,在杂波环境下,粒子滤波可以稳健跟踪目标状态和目标数。     

High gain airborne antenna for satellite communications

The performance of an airborne phased-array antenna, which was developed and evaluated onboard a commercial aircraft using the Engineering Test Satellite V (ETS-V), is reported. The system requirements and the antenna configuration that satisfies them are described. The radiation pattern, gain and axial ratio, noise temperature and ratio of gain to noise temperature, and environmental characteristics are presented. The results obtained by the flight experiments demonstrate that the performance of the antenna is the same as that on the ground, so that the antenna is suitable for installation in an aircraft for satellite communications     

Regenerative hybrid arrays for interference suppression

The authors propose two regenerative hybrid adaptive arrays in which a self-generated reference signal is obtained through a detection-modulation procedure from the array output. The proposed arrays do not depend on spectrum spreading and are therefore applicable when this feature is not available. It is shown that at steady state the performance of these regenerative hybrid arrays is approximately the same as that of a hybrid array with a perfect reference signal. As to transient behavior, these arrays are shown to converge if the available imperfect steering vector can result in a few dB output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio with the self-generated reference disabled     

机载燃油密度传感器高低温静态试验技术

为了验证航空机载燃油密度传感器在高温燃油和低温燃油中的燃油密度测量精度,运用阿基米德原理对高低温静态验证试验技术进行了研究。设计和提出了一种新的高精度航空机载燃油密度传感器高低温静态试验装置和方法。研究结果表明：试验装置密度测量系统的测量最大误差为-0.077%,符合试验装置测量精度为受试品测量精度4倍及以上的规定（受试品测量精度为0.4%）。结果通过了C919总体设计单位和美国Parker公司的评审,能可靠地验证航空机载燃油密度传感器在高温燃油和低温燃油中的燃油密度测量精度,为航空机载燃油密度传感器工程应用和装机试飞提供了试验数据支撑。     

Where next for airborne AESA technology?

Airborne radar has evolved from early systems where almost all radar characteristics were fixed to today's highly flexible, software-driven systems. The most recent advance has been the widespread adoption of active electronically scanned array (AESA) antennas, which has given the system designer unprecendented control of antenna characteristics. However, in common with most conventional radars, even these systems only operate within a limited frequency band. This argues that the next major advance will be the advent of wideband and multi-band systems, thus addressing the major remaining constraint facing the system designer and offering the capability for a step change in the functionality and performance of future systems.     

Digital beamforming calibration for FMCW radar

Three sources of beamforming deterioration are identified for an FMCW radar. These all relate to time-of-arrival and cable delays. There are small range-dependent phase errors at the receiver outputs. The delays cause frequency shifts, which produce phase errors at the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) outputs after ranging. These frequency shifts cause amplitude errors when the signals are resolved into the same range bin. Two methods of compensating for phase and amplitude errors are proposed. The first corrects for phase errors prior to beamforming. Amplitude errors are ignored but the residual error is usually small. The second method aligns the receiver frequencies digitally before ranging. This eliminates the phase errors and the amplitude errors at the DFT range estimates     

空空导弹固体火箭冲压发动机设计参数优化

为使空空导弹在较宽的空域范围内获得优化的综合性能,提出了以导弹综合特性为目标函数来优化固体火箭冲压发动机设计参数的思路,以空空导弹在飞行高度分别为5,10km和15km的飞行距离和飞行速度的综合性能参数为目标函数,建立了固体火箭冲压发动机设计参数优化模型,利用遗传算法进行了固体火箭冲压发动机设计参数的优化.优化的结果表明:当参数选择适当时,采用非壅塞固体火箭冲压发动机的空空导弹在较宽的工作包线内也能够具有优秀的飞行性能,在高度为5,10km和15km时,空空导弹的飞行距离分别达到了62.9,89.2km和133.1km,空空导弹的平均飞行速度也得到了提高.      

Convergence analysis for inexact mechanization of Kalman filtering

A computational aspect of real-time estimation is considered, in which the estimation algorithm to be used has the standard optimal Kalman filtering structure, but the actual inverse matrix within the Kalman gain is replaced by an expedient approximation at each instant. In real-time applications, most Kalman filtering schemes are approximate to a degree as a consequence of numerical roundoff matrix inversion. The convergence properties and error estimates of such schemes are obtained to provide a theoretical basis for gauging the utility of using the above approximations of the Kalman gain matrix at each time instant. A new exponentially convergent scheme is also suggested for approximating the inverse matrix within the Kalman gain. Conditions are determined under which online approximate matrix inversion can be eliminated as the cause of Kalman filter divergence in real-time implementations     

Status of CR-like lower bounds for nonlinear filtering

The motivation and mechanics of utilizing Cramer-Rao (CR) -type lower bounds to gauge the performance of filters being evaluated in nonlinear estimation applications such as in sonar, sonobuoy, and radar target tracking are reviewed. The status of several similar alternative CR-type lower bounds that have been considered or used for this purpose and certain limitations and/or caveats associated with their use are offered. These results should be of interest to sonar, sonobuoy, and radar practitioners and Kalman-filtering or nonlinear-filtering theorists     

机载电气设备ATE的设计和实现

介绍了电气设备ATE系统的软、硬件设计和实现电气设备ATE是一套总线式机载设备地面自动检测系统,采用开放式ATE系统结构,应用VXI和GPIB总线技术和先进的图形化测试软件技术等.