TRACKING RADAR

Tracking with Radar

Sequential Lobing
Conical Scan
Monopulse Tracking Radar
Amplitude Comparison Monopulse (One and two coordinate)
Phase Comparison Monopulse
Tracking in Range
Acquisition and Scanning Patterns
Comparison of Trackers
 Tracking With Radar
• Tracking is the process of continuously maintaining the antenna beam on the target
and also the echo signal within the range gate.
• The radar which detects target and determines location as well as predict its
trajectory path as well as its future coordinates is known as tracking radar.
• Based on the measured coordinates error signal will be generated.
• Antenna should be moved based on error signal to maintain the target within the
beam.
• Use pencil beam
• The figure below mentions block diagram of simple tracking radar.
• As shown tracking operation in the radar depends upon angular information. very
narrow antenna beam is used here which will track one target object at one time.
This can be performed using range gating and doppler filtering module.
• Range tracking is carried out using timing control unit. Doppler tracking is carried
out using Doppler gating unit.

• The angle error signal is provided as input for servo motor based control system.
This servo system will steer the antenna as per error input and hence will track the
target.
• The various methods for generating the error signal are classified as sequential
lobing, conical scan, and simultaneous lobing or Monopulse.
• The data available from a tracking radar may be presented on a cathode-ray-tube
(CRT) display
 Tracking Radar Types

Following are the types of tracking radar:

• STT Radar (Single Target Tracking Radar)
• ADT Radar (Automatic Detection and Tracking Radar)
• TWS Radar (Track While Scan Radar)
• Phased Array Tracking Radar
• Monopulse Tracking Radar

STT Radar (Single Target Tracking Radar)

• Tracks a single target at fast data

• High Data rate – 10 obs/sec.
• Employs a closed loop servo system to keep the error signal small.
• Application – tracking of aircraft/missile targets

ADT Radar (Automatic Detection and Tracking Radar)

• This Tracking is preferred in air surveillance tracking radar.
• Lower data rate than STT.

• Can track hundreds/ a few thousand targets simultaneously.

• Tracking is open loop i.e antenna position is not controlled by data processing.

TWS Radar (Track While Scan Radar)

• This rapidly scans a limited angular sector to maintain tracks with a moderate data
rate on more than one target within the coverage of antenna (another name for
ADT).
• Scans a limited angular sector to maintain tracks – simultaneous track & search
• Data rate : moderate
• Can track a number of targets.
• Equivalent of track while scan is ADT
• TWS systems are used for air-defense radars, air craft landing radars and in air
borne intercept radars to track multiple objects
 Phased Array Tracking Radar
• A large number of targets can be held in track

• This is done on time sharing basis

• Beam is electronically switched from one angular position to another in a few

microseconds.

• It combines the rapid update rate of a single target tracker with the ability of ADT
to hold many targets in track

• High data rate (like in STT)

• The cost is very very high.

• These radars are used in air defense weapon systems.

Angle Tracking
• When a target is approaching, the antenna is to be moved continuously to track the
target
• To determine the direction in which the antenna beam needs to be moved, a
measurement has to be made at two different beam positions.
• Below figure shows the basic principle of continuous angle tracking
 • Two overlapping antenna patterns that crossover at the boresight direction

• A target is located in this example to the right of the boresight at an angle

• The amplitude of the target echo in beam B is larger than the amplitude in
the beam A

• Which indicates that the two beams should moved to the right to bring the target to
the boresight position.

• If you want to track the target the boresight is always maintained in the direction of
the target.

Methods to extract error signal may be classified as

• Sequential lobing 1. Time shares a single beam
• Conical scan 2. Antenna beam is switched between two positions
• Simultaneous lobing or monopulse

1. More than one simultaneous beam is used

for tracking
2. Usually 4 simultaneous beams used for 2-
dimensional tracking

Single beam on time sharing basis. Multiple beam.

Sequential lobing Radar and Conical scan Simultaneous lobing or monopulse Radar]
Radar

Simpler Complex

One antenna Multiple antennas

Less equipment More equipments

Not accurate Accurate

No of pulses are required to extract the Single pulse is used to determine the
error signal angular error.
 Sequential Lobing
• The antenna pattern commonly employed with tracking radars is the symmetrical
pencil beam in which the, elevation and azimuth beam widths are approximately
equal.

• Actually the difference between the target position and the reference direction is
the angular error.

• The tracking radar attempts to position the antenna to make the angular error zero.
When the angular error is zero, the target is located along the reference direction.

• One method of obtaining the direction and the magnitude of the angular error in one
coordinate is switching the single antenna beam between two squinted angular
positions. This is called as lobe switching, sequential switching or sequential
lobing.

• The error signal is obtained from a target not on the switching axis.

• The direction in which to move the beam to bring the target on boresight is found
by observing which beam position has the larger signal.
 Fig 1-a is a polar representation of the antenna beam (minus the side lobes) in the two switched
positions. A plot in rectangular coordinates is shown in Fig.1-b, and the error signal obtained
from a target not on the switching axis (reference direction) is shown in Fig.1-c.

• When the echo signals in the two beam positions are equal, the target is n axis and
its direction is that of the switching axis.

• If orthogonal angle information is needed, two more switching positions are

needed.

• So, two dimensional sequentially lobing radar might consists of four feed horns
illuminating a single reflector antenna.

• An improvement over this can be a single squinted feed which could be rotated
continuously to obtain angle measurements in two coordinates . This results in
conical scan.

• One of the limitations of a simple unswitched non-scanning pencil-beam antenna is

that the angle accuracy can be no better than the size of the antenna beam width.

• An important feature of sequential lobing (as well as the other tracking techniques
to be discussed) is that the target-position accuracy can be far better than that given
by the antenna beam width.
 Conical Scan

• The angle between the axis of rotation and the axis of the antenna beam is called the
Squint Angle.

• Consider a target at position A.

• The echo signal amplitude will be modulated at a frequency equal to the rotation
frequency of the beam.

• The amplitude of the echo signal modulation will depend upon the shape of the antenna
pattern, the squint angle and the angle between the target line of sight & the rotation
axis. This amplitude of the echo signal will be modulated ata frequency equal to the
beam rotation frequency (conical Scan frequency).

• The phase of the modulation depends on the angle between the target and the rotation
axis.

• The conical scan modulation is extracted from the echo signal and applied to a servo-
control system which continually positions the antenna rotation axis in the direction of
the target. [Note that two servos are required because the tracking is required in two-
dimensions.

• When the antenna is on target, as in B of Fig. 2, the line of sight to the target and the
rotation axis coincide, and the conical-scan modulation is zero.

• Two servo motors are required, one for azimuth and the other for elevation
 Block diagram of conical scan tracking radar

• The antenna is mounted so that it can be positioned in both azimuth and elevation
by separate m
• Redirection of beam i) Rotating feed ii) Nutating feed.
• When the feed is designed to maintain the plane of polarization as it rotates about
the axis, it is called ‘ nutating feed’.
• A rotating feed is one which causes the plane of polarization to rotate.
• The nutating feed is preferred over the rotating feed since a rotating polarization
can cause the amplitude of the target echo signal to change with time even for a
stationary target on axis.
• A change in amplitude caused by a modulated echo signal can result in degraded
angle tracking accuracy.
• The nutating feed is more complicated than the rotating feed.
• A typical conical scan rotation speed might be in the vicinity of 30 rev/sec.
• The same motor that provides the conical-scan rotation of the antenna beam also
drives a two-phase reference generator with two sinusoidal outputs 900 apart in
phase.
 • These two outputs serve as a reference to extract the elevation and azimuth errors.
• The received echo signal is fed to the receiver from the antenna via two rotary
joints (not shown in the block diagram). One rotary joint permits motion in
azimuth; the other, in elevation.
• The receiver is conventional super heterodyne except for features related to the
conical scan tracking.
• The error signal is extracted in the video after the second detector.
• Range gating eliminates noise and excludes other targets.
• The error signal from the range gate is compared with both the elevation and
azimuth reference signals in the angle error detectors.
• The angle error outputs are amplified and used to drive the antenna elevation and
azimuth servo motors.
• The video signal is a pulse train modulated by the conical scan frequency.
• It is usually convenient to stretch the pulses before low pass filtering so as to
increase the energy at the conical scan frequency to perform A/D conversion.
• This pulse stretching is accomplished by a sample-and hold circuit which also
known as boxcar generator.

Fig 4: (a) Pulse train with conical scan modulation (b)same pulse train after passing through
boxcar generator.(stretching by a sample and hold circuit)

• PRF must be sufficiently large compared to conical scan frequency for proper
filtering and avoiding inaccuracy of the angle measurement.
• The PRF must be atleast four times of conical scan frequency but normally 10
times.
Automatic Gain Control (AGC) :

• The echo-signal amplitude at the tracking-radar receiver will not be constant but
will vary with time. The three major causes of variation in amplitude are:
– The inverse-fourth-power relationship between the echo signal and range
– The conical scan modulation (angle-error signal) and
– Amplitude fluctuations in the target cross Section.
• The function of the automatic gain control (AGC) is to maintain the d-c level of the
receiver output constant and to smooth or eliminate as much of the noise like
amplitude fluctuations as possible without disturbing the extraction of the desired
error signal at the conical-scan frequency.
• AGC is also important for avoiding saturation by large signals which could cause
the loss of the scanning modulation and the accompanying error signal.
An example of the AGC portion of a tracking-radar receiver is shown in Fig
• A portion of the video-amplifier output is passed through a low-pass or smoothing
filter and fed back to control the gain of the IF amplifier.
• The larger the video output, the larger will be the feedback signal and the greater
will be the gain reduction.

Figure: Block diagram of the AGC portion of a tracking-radar receiver

•The filter in the AGC loop should pass all frequencies from direct current to just below
the conical-scan-modulation frequency.
•The loop gain of the AGC filter measured at the conical-scan frequency should be low
so that the error signal will not be affected by AGC action.
•The phase shift of this filter must be small if its phase characteristic is not to influence
the error signal.
•A phase change of the error signal is equivalent to a rotation of the reference axes and
introduces cross coupling, or "cross talk," between the elevation and azimuth angle-
tracking loops.
 • Cross talk affects the stability of the tracking and might result in an unwanted
nutating motion of the antenna.

• In conventional tracking radar applications, the phase change introduced by the

feedback-loop filter should be less than 100 and in some applications, it should be as
little as 20.

• For this reason, a filter with a sharp attenuation characteristic in the vicinity of the
conical-scan frequency might not be desirable because of the relatively large
amount of phase shift which it would introduce.

Other considerations:
• In both the sequential-lobing and conical-scan techniques, the measurement of the
angle error in two orthogonal coordinates (azimuth and elevation) requires that a
minimum of three pulses be processed.
• In practice, however, the minimum number of pulses in sequential lobing is usually
four-one per quadrant. Although a conical scan radar can also be operated with only
four pulses per revolution, it is more usual to have ten or more per revolution. This
allows the modulation due to the angle error to be more that of a continuous sine
wave.
• Thus, the PRF is usually at least an order of magnitude greater than the conical-
scan frequency.
• The scan frequency also must be at least an order of magnitude greater than the
tracking bandwidth.
• A conical-scan-on-receive-only (COSRO) tracking radar radiates a non-scanning
transmit beam, but receives with a conical scanning beam to extract the angle error.
The analogous operation with sequential lobing is called lobe-on-receive-only
(LORO).
 DISADVANTAGES

Sequential lobing
• Angle accuracy can be no better than the size of the antenna beamwidth.
• Variation in echo strength on a pulse-by-pulse basis changes the signal level thereby
reducing tracking accuracy
• The antenna gain is less than the peak gain in beam axis direction, reducing
maximum range that can be measured
Conical scan
• The antenna scan rate is limited by the scanning mechanism (mechanical or
electronic)
• Sensitive to target modulation
• Mechanical vibration and wear and tear due to rotating feed
• It creates confusion by rapid changes in signal strength

MONOPULSE TRACKING RADAR

• Pulse-to-pulse amplitude fluctuations of the echo signal have no effect on tracking
accuracy if the angular measurement is made on the basis of one pulse rather than
many.
• There are several methods by which angle-error information might be obtained with
only a single pulse.
• More than one antenna beam is used simultaneously in these methods, in contrast to
the conical-scan or lobe-switching tracker, which utilizes one antenna beam on a
time-shared basis.
• The angle of arrival of the echo signal may be determined in a single-pulse system
by measuring the relative phase or the relative amplitude of the echo pulse received
in each beam.
• The names simultaneous lobing and monopulse are used to describe those
tracking techniques which derive angle-error information on the basis of a single
pulse.
• Most popular monopulse is – Amplitude Comparison Monopulse