Quality of Radar Direction-Finding via Conical Scanning

Introduction. Conical scanning is applied for optimizing hardware resources in new devices, as well as when upgrading existing systems. All this explains the relevance of studying this type of direction finding systems.

Aim. To adjust and complement the known calculation relations for the variance of direction finding results – an indicator of the quality (accuracy) of direction finding, as well as to determine the possibilities of optimizing direction finding and automatic object tracking processes.

Materials and methods. Factors limiting the accuracy of direction finding via conical scanning were analyzed using spectral analysis. Mathematical modeling followed by statistical processing of quantitative results makes it possible to determine the conditions under which the influence of certain factors is predominant, as well as the conditions under which adjustment (completion) of the known calculation relations is required. The specified conditions are the errors at which the objects of direction finding are tracked. New calculation relations for the mentioned adjustment were determined by the methods of statistical radio engineering.

Results. The validity of the calculation relations found is confirmed by mathematical modeling. Calculations and modeling lead to the need to optimize parameters for automatic object tracking systems.

Conclusion. The study shows that, when choosing parameters for auto-tracking systems with conical scanning, it is important to implement object tracking not with minimal, but rather with optimized tracking errors in angular coordinates, which are to be estimated during direction finding. Moreover, the optimized errors (the values of static errors and the most probable values of the dynamic tracking errors) will require adjustment of the known analytical estimates for the variance of the direction finding results – the qualitative indicator of the direction finder (accuracy indicator). The determined analytical relationships allow such an adjustment to be performed, leading to an increased variance estimate by 10 dB.

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