Radar Systems

UNIT 4

Smitashree Mohapatra
Assistant Professor
ECE Department
MVSR Engineering College
 Tracking Radar
• The Radar, which is used to track the path of one or more targets is known as
Tracking Radar. In general, it performs the following functions before it starts the
tracking activity.
1. Target detection
2. Range of the target
3. Finding elevation and azimuth angles
4. Finding Doppler frequency shift
• So, Tracking Radar tracks the target by tracking one of the three parameters —
range, angle, Doppler frequency shift. Most of the Tracking Radars use the principle
of tracking in angle.
Angular Tracking
• The pencil beams of Radar Antenna perform tracking in angle. The axis of Radar
Antenna is considered as the reference direction. If the direction of the target and
reference direction is not same, then there will be angular error, which is nothing
but the difference between the two directions.
• Following are the two techniques, which are used in angular tracking.
1. Sequential Lobing
2. Conical Scanning
• Now, let us discuss about these two techniques one by one.
Sequential Lobing
• If the Antenna beams are switched between two patterns alternately for tracking
the target, then it is called sequential lobing. It is also called sequential switching
and lobe switching. This technique is used to find the angular error in one
coordinate. It gives the details of both magnitude and direction of angular error.
• As shown in the figure, Antenna beams switch between Position 1 and Position 2
alternately. Angular error θ is indicated in the above figure. Sequential lobing gives
the position of the target with high accuracy. This is the main advantage of
sequential lobing.
Conical Scanning
• If the Antenna beam continuously rotates for tracking a target, then it is called conical
scanning. Conical scan modulation is used to find the position of the target. Following
figure shows an example of conical scanning.
• Squint angle is the angle between beam axis and rotation axis and it is shown in
the above figure. The echo signal obtained from the target gets modulated at a
frequency equal to the frequency at which the Antenna beam rotates.
• The angle between the direction of the target and the rotation axis determines the
amplitude of the modulated signal. So, the conical scan modulation has to be
extracted from the echo signal and then it is to be applied to servo control system,
which moves the Antenna beam axis towards the direction of the target.
 Mono-pulse amplitude comparision for single angular
coordinate
• The amplitude-comparison monopulse employs two overlapping antenna
patterns (Fig (a)) to obtain the angular error in one coordinate. The two
overlapping antenna beams may be generated with a single reflector or with a
lens antenna illuminated by two adjacent feeds. (A cluster of four feeds may be
used if both elevation- and azimuth-error signals are wanted.) The sum of the two
antenna patterns of Fig (a) is shown in Fig (b), and the difference in Fig (c). The
sum patterns are used for transmission, while both the sum pattern and the
difference pattern are used on reception.

• The signal received with the difference pattern provides the magnitude of the
angle error. The sum signal provides the range measurement and is also used as a
reference to extract the sign of the error signal. Signals received from the sum and
the difference patterns are amplified separately and combined in a phase-
sensitive detector to produce the error-signal characteristic shown in Fig (d).
A block diagram of the amplitude-comparison-monopulse tracking radar for a single
angular coordinate is shown in Fig. The two adjacent antenna feeds are connected
to the two arms of a hybrid junction such as a magic T, a rat race, or a short-slot
coupler. The sum and difference signals appear at the two other arms of the hybrid.
On reception, the outputs of the sum arm and the difference arm are each
heterodyned to an intermediate frequency and amplified as in any superheterodyne
receiver.

Fig: Block diagram of amplitude-comparison monopulse radar

 Mono-pulse amplitude comparision for two angular
coordinate extracting error signals in both elevation and
azimuth:
• A block diagram of monopulse radar with provision for extracting error signals
in both elevation and azimuth is shown in Fig.
• The cluster of four feeds generates four partially overlapping antenna beams.
The feeds might be used with a parabolic reflector, Cassegrain antenna, or a
lens.
• All four feeds generate the sum pattern. The difference pattern in one plane is
formed by taking the sum of two adjacent feeds and subtracting this from the
sum of the other two adjacent feeds. The difference pattern in the orthogonal
plane is obtained by adding the differences of the orthogonal adjacent pairs.
• A total of four hybrid junctions generate the sum channel, the azimuth
difference channel, and the elevation difference channel.
• Three separate mixers and IF amplifiers are shown, one for each channel.
All three mixers operate from a single local oscillator in order to maintain the
phase relationships between the three channels.
• Two phase-sensitive detectors extract the angle-error information, one for
azimuth, the other for elevation. Range information is extracted from the
output of the sum channel after amplitude detection.
• Since a phase comparison is made between the output of the sum channel and each of the
difference channels, it is important that the phase shifts introduced by each of the channels be
almost identical. The phase difference between channels must be maintained to within 25° or
better for reasonably proper performance. The gains of the channels also must not differ by more
than specified amounts.

• The purpose in using one- or two-channel monopulse receivers is to ease the problem
associated with maintaining identical phase and amplitude balance among the three channels of
the conventional receiver. Two-channel monopulse receivers have also been used by combining
the sum and the two difference signals in a manner such that they can be again resolved into
three components after amplification.
 Mono-pulse Phase-comparison Method
The measurement of angle of arrival by comparison of the phase relationships in the signals
from the separated antennas of a radio interferometer has been widely used by the radio
astronomers for precise measurements of the positions of radio stars. The interferometer as
used by the radio astronomer is a passive instrument, the source of energy being radiated by
the target itself. Tracking radar which operates with phase information is similar to an active
interferometer and might be called an interfero meter radar. It has also been called
Simultaneous phase comparison radar, or phase-comparison monopulse.
In Fig. two antennas are shown separated by a distance d. The distance to the target is R and
is assumed large compared with the antenna separation d. The line of sight to the target
makes an angle θ to the perpendicular bisector of the line joining the two antennas.
The distance from antenna 1 to the target is
• R1 = R+(dsinθ)/2
• And the distance from antenna 2 to the target is
• R2 = R–(dsinθ)/2
• The phase difference between the echo signals in the two antennas is approximately
• Δφ = 2πd sinθ/λ
• For small angles where sin θ = 0, the phase difference is a linear function of the angular error and
may be used to position the antenna via a servo-control loop.
• In the early versions of the phase-comparison monopulse radar, the angular error
was determined by measuring the phase difference between the outputs of
receivers connected to each antenna.

• The output from one of the antennas was used for transmission and for
providing the range information. With such an arrangement it was difficult to obtain
the desired aperture illuminations and to maintain a stable boresight. A more
satisfactory method of operation is to form the sum and difference patterns in the RF
and to process the signals as in conventional amplitude-comparison monopulse radar.
 Tracking in range using split range gates
• The technique for automatically tracking in range is based on the split range gate.
Two range gates are generated as shown in Fig. One is the early gate, and the
other is the late gate.
• The echo pulse is shown in Fig., the relative position of the gates at a particular
instant in Fig., and the error signal in Fig.
• The portion of the signal energy contained in the early gate is less than that in
the late gate. If the outputs of the two gates are subtracted, an error signal will
result which may be used to reposition the center of the gates.
• The magnitude of the error signal is a measure of the difference between the
center of the pulse and the center of the gates.
• The sign of the error signal determines the direction in which the gates must be
repositioned by a feedback- control system. When the error signal is zero the range
gates are centered on the pulse.
• The range gating necessary to perform automatic tracking offers several
advantages as by products. It isolates one target excluding targets at other
ranges. This permits the boxcar generator to be employed. Also range gating
improves the signal-to-noise ratio since it eliminates the noise from the other
range intervals. Hence the width of the gate should be sufficiently narrow to
minimize extraneous noise.
• On the other hand, it must not be so narrow that an appreciable fraction of the
signal energy is excluded. A reasonable compromise is to make the gate width of
the order of the pulse width.

Fig: Split-range-gate tracking (a) Echo pulse; (h) early-late range gates; (c) difference
signal between early and late range gates.
Acquisition ( Search)
Comparison of trackers
Track Vs Search