CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 1 of 9

SEAT NUMBER: _______________________________

LAST NAME: _______________________________
FIRST NAME: _______________________________
SID: _______________________________

CONFIDENTIAL EXAM PAPER

This paper is not to be removed from the examination room.

MECH5720
SENSORS AND SIGNALS
End of Semester Examination
Semester 2 – 2016
Total Duration: 2 hours and 10 minutes
Writing Time: 2 hours
Reading Time: 10 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

1. This is an open book exam. Books and notes may be taken into the exam room.
2. Electronic devices such as tablets and laptops are not permitted.
3. Programmable calculators are permitted in this Exam.
4. This exam contains two (2) SECTIONS. All questions must be answered.
5. You are allowed to write only on the question paper during reading time
6. Write your response to questions in the answer booklet(s) provided and on the removable
Appendix from the question paper which should be included with your answer booklet.
7. Note that questions are of unequal value. The total mark of this exam paper is 108
8. This question paper must be returned with the answer booklets or materials.
9. Take care to write legibly. Write your final answers in ink, not pencil.

Please check your examination paper is complete (9 pages including this cover sheet) and indicate you
have done this by signing below.

I have checked the examination paper and affirm it is complete.

Student Signature: _______________________________________________ Date: _____________

CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 2 of 9

SECTION A
Question A.1 General.
a. The front-end of an acoustic sensor can be modelled as a 1k resistor, and is at
40C, determine the noise power spectral density (V/Hz) (2)
b. What is the probability density function (PDF) of shot (Schottky) noise? (1)
c. How fast must an analogue signal that contains spectral components up to 2.5 kHz
be sampled to avoid aliasing (Hz)? (1)
d. A pulsed underwater sonar measures the round-trip time to a target of 0.15s,
assuming that the speed of propagation is1540m/s, what is the range (m) (2)
e. What is the relationship between the pulse-width and the 3dB bandwidth of a
sinusoidal signal? (1)
f. What is the power density of an isotropic antenna radiating a power of 10W at a
range of 100m (W/m2)? (2)
g. Convert a radiated power of 33dBW to Watt. (1)
h. For heterodyne detection of a laser pulse, at approximately what wavelength does
photon noise become dominant over thermal noise? (1)
i. At the same temperature and pressure, it the speed of sound higher in salt or fresh
water? (1)
j. Multipath effects can increase the detection range to a low flying aircraft by a factor
of two over the free space range, true or false (T/F). (1)
k. For a sphere with a diameter of 10cm, what is its radar cross section (m2) when
measured at a frequency 35GHz? (note the number of marks here and answer
accordingly) (3)
l. What is the name of the distribution that results if Gaussian noise is passed through
a narrow band filter and then envelope detected? (1)
m. Explain briefly how a typical Doppler sensor extracts the Doppler shift using the
transmitted and received signals. (1)
n. Describe a convenient method of generating maximal length pseudo-random
sequences. (1)
o. In addition to the chirp bandwidth, what is the other characteristic of an FMCW
radar that affects the range resolution? (1)
p. Describe two techniques that can be applied to reduce the coupling between the
transmitted and received signals in an FMCW radar. (2)
q. If a phased array is made up of directive elements, the antenna pattern is
determined as the product of two factors, what are these factors called? (2)
r. What kind of beam pattern does a side-scan sonar produce? (1)
s. If the RMS noise on the split gate module is 5m, what is the RMS noise on the
output of the tracking filter (m) if the filter bandwidth is 2Hz and the sample rate is
100Hz ? (2)
t. What is the primary advantage of operating a radar with a staggered pulse
repetition frequency (PRF)? (1)
u. What is the Larmor frequency for hydrogen in a magnetic field of 7 Tesla (MHz)? (2)

Subtotal (30)
CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 3 of 9

Question A.2 Lab Activities.

a. In the tellurometer lab, the measured range is 2m what is the difference in the
frequency between the 1st and the 5th maximum (Hz) (2)
b. Why do we command servo 9 and 10 not 1 and 2 when communicating with the
pan-tilt unit in Mini SSCII mode? (1)
Start byte = 0xFF Servo number 0x09 and 0x0A Servo position 0x00 to 0xFE

c. What does this piece of code taken from the Melting Pot, do? (2)

d. From the lab on target characterisation, Figure 1 below is the pattern of what
target? (1)
e. In Figure 2 below, showing the antenna pattern of the 15 element ultrasound array,
explain why there are grating lobes in this case. (2)
f. Explain why the grating lobes are smaller than the main lobe. (2)
g. Determine the dB ratio between the main and the right hand grating lobe for the
measured pattern in V RMS (1)

Figure 1: (what is this?) Figure 2: Ultrasound array pattern

Subtotal (11)
CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 4 of 9

Question A.3 Quizzes.

a. If the 3dB beamwidth of a fan-beam antenna is 2 x 20, what is its approximate
gain (dB) relative to an isotropic antenna? (2)
b. If the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of a small target at the output of a pulsed radar is
13.2dB at a range of 5km, what will the SNR be at 7km? (2)
o
c. For a radar frequency of 150 GHz and a temperature of 20 C what is the signal
attenuation (dB/km)? (2)
d. Assuming that the speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 2.997925×108, how fast
would it travel through Aluminium Oxide (r = 7.85)? (2)
e. Why is an Automatic Gain Control (AGC) required in a range tracker? (1)
f. In a 2nd order range tracking loop, accelerating targets are tracked with no lag (True
or False)? (1)

Subtotal (10)

Section A Total (51)

CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 5 of 9

SECTION B
Chain Home Radar Background

Figure 3: A Chain Home radar station at RAF Ventnor

Chain Home consisted of a chain of fifty low-frequency bistatic radars along the east coast
of the United Kingdom. These were developed in the 1930’s to identify and track incoming
enemy bombers at long range.
Figure 3 above shows a typical configuration with 105m high steel transmit towers
supporting a vertical array of dipole antennas that radiated a “floodlight” beam across the
North Sea towards Europe. A similar cluster of tall wooden towers a few hundred metres
distant supported a number of crossed dipole antennas that determined the direction of
arrival of any echoes from aircraft out to ranges in excess of 200 km.
CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 6 of 9

The Transmitter
Figure 4 shows a diagram of two towers supporting the transmitter arrays. This exam is
concerned with the long wave array only. The Main Array, at a mean height of 64.5m,
consists of eight half-wave dipoles, length 5.7m, separated by 5.4m. The Gap Filler Array
consists of four half-wave dipoles at a mean height of 28.5m of the same length and
separation as the main array.

Figure 4: The transmitter array

The transmitter specifications are as follows:

Transmit frequency: ft = 20-30 MHz (adjustable)
Peak power: Pt = 350 kW
Pulse width:  = 20µs
Pulse repetition freq: prf = 25 pps

Question B.1 Transmitter Antenna Characteristics

a. If the transmit frequency is exactly matched to the half wave (/2) dipole antenna,
what is it (MHz)? (2)
b. The main array consists of eight dipoles separated by 5.4m. Ignoring multipath
effects, what is the elevation beamwidth of this antenna (deg)? (2)
c. If the azimuth beamwidth of a half wave dipole is 78 (1.36 rad), what is the antenna
gain, GtdB of the main array (dB) (2)
d. Assuming a flat earth model and an antenna height ha, it can be shown that the path
length difference, , between the direct and multipath signals can be approximated
by   2ha sin  for the range to the target R >> ha.
At what angle would the direct and multipath signals cancel completely to produce a
null in the elevation beam pattern of the antenna (deg)? (4)
e. At what angles on either side of the null would the direct and multipath signals add in
phase to create maxima (deg) (4)
Subtotal (14)
CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 7 of 9

The Receiver
Figure 5 shows a diagram of the wooden receiver tower supporting the crossed dipole
receiver arrays. The “A System” has a mean height of 64.5m, and consists of a pair of half-
wave crossed dipoles separated in height by 5.4m. The “B system” has a mean height of
28.5m and has an identical configuration to the A system.

Note that as the mean heights of the upper two receiver arrays are identical to those of the
transmitter arrays, their multipath induced maxima and nulls will occur at the same
elevation angles.

Figure 5: The receiver tower with crossed dipole arrays

Question B.2 The Receiver Antenna Characteristics

A horizontal half-wave dipole produces a torus
shaped antenna pattern. A cut through this pattern to
produce a 2D slice produces a figure of eight polar
pattern as shown.
Figure 5 shows that each element of each array
consists of a crossed dipole, along with an additional
reflector element behind each.

a. Explain (using a diagram if you wish) how the elevation beam patterns generated by
the A and B Systems) could be used to determine the height of an aircraft for a known
range (refer to the Transmitter elevation patterns to help with this question). (2)
CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 8 of 9

The following three questions are to be completed on the Appendix A sheet and handed in
with your answer sheet.
b. Complete the table of the normalised gains GNS and GEW (dB) for the N-S and the E-
W antenna patterns respectively, at the marked angles. (9)
c. Determine the azimuth transfer function (Amplitude) by taking the difference between
GNS and GEW, Include it in the table. (2)
d. Accurately plot the azimuth transfer function on the graph provided (4)

e. For an aircraft target somewhere in the beam, if the measured amplitude is +25dB,
what it the bearing (from E) to the target (deg)? (2)
f. At what other angles could the target be located (deg) (3)
g. Looking at the drawing of the receiver tower, identify the technique used to counter
the directional ambiguity (2)
Subtotal (24)
Question B.3 Target Detection Range
Answer the following questions using the specifications for the transmitter, the calculated
transmitter antenna gain and assuming that the receiver characteristics are as follows:
Receiver antenna gain: GrdB = 5.8dB
Receiver temperature: T = 290K
Receiver noise figure: NFdB = 15dB

a. For a rectangular transmitted pulse and a single tuned circuit “matched” filter in the
receiver, determine the optimum filter bandwidth for the receiver (Hz) (2)
b. What is the noise output (noise floor) of the receiver NdB (dBW)? (3)
c. Assuming that the system Pd = 50% and the Pfa = 10-3, what is the single pulse SNR
required for detection (dB)? (1)
d. Ignoring any fluctuation and other losses, determine the minimum detectable
received signal power, Sdet, to achieve the required Pd and Pfa (dBW) (2)
e. Using the dB form of the radar range equation and ignoring multipath effects and
atmospheric losses, determine the detection range for an aircraft target if its RCS is
100m2 (km). (5)
f. If multipath were taken into consideration, what mould the maximum and minimum
detection ranges be (km)? (2)
g. Assuming the 4/3 earth radius model for propagation based on atmospheric
refraction, determine the minimum aircraft height to ensure direct line-of-sight
between the radar and the aircraft at the detection range you calculated in question
B.3e (m). (4)

Subtotal (19)
Section B Total (57)

Grand Total (108)

CC0730 Semester 2 – 2016 Page 9 of 9

Appendix A: Pattern for a Crossed Dipole Antenna

Name:_____________________________

SID:_______________________________

The figure shows the normalised dB antenna patterns for each of the dipoles of a crossed
dipole antenna. The antennas are mounted in the N-S axis and the E-W axis

Angle Gain Gain Amplitude

(deg) GNS GEW GNS-GEW
(dB) dB) (dB)
10
20
30
40
45
50
60
70
80