GRIFO RADAR: ADVANCES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN HIGH-RESOLUTION

MODES FORAN EXPERT AVIONIC RADAR FOR FIGHTERS

A Aprile, A .Maurt; .D. Ueledandrt; T .MacriFellizzert; H Fendeggia
Galileo Avionica S.p.A. - Radar Systems Business Unit - Radar Systems Design, Development and Innovation
Via GB. Grassi 93, 20157 Milan, Italy
Ph: +39 - 02 - 35790.905 1674; Fax: +39 - 02 - 35790.071
E-mail: [email protected]@[email protected].
[email protected], [email protected]

Keywords: Radar systems, SAR, ISAR. Singapore and in Brazil, and for the light trainer L159 in
Czech Republic.

ABSTRACT
/n the 9()s, Galileo Avionica (GA Radar ~stemr Business
Unit) has developed the GJ(/FO Rada". a multimode-
multirolepulse LJoppler rada". devotedto oCCUjJY an linpor-
tant role in thepmi(p ifthe radar/or weapon release /n the
last /5years more than 4()() units have been soldlo/ive Air
Forces, /or more than J()f), ()()() hours ifoperalive/l{ghlS.
The need/or Ihe implemenlalion if high-resolulion modes,
wilh seaborne largels idenli/lcalion /or Ihe /lalian Nary
pushed10 Ihe extension ifthe Gri/o Radar to high-resolution
applicalions.
This paper describes Ihe results oblained with a modi/led
version ifthis deVICe, indicatedas Erperimenlal HR-Gr(/o, Figure 1 - Grifo Radar
with high-resolulion capabilities. Based on Ihe low-
resolulion modes ifIhe Gr(/o, this radar allowed 10 search In the currently operative versions, the Grifo Radar is pro-
and IracK Ihe largels, and 10 acquire the pertinent high- vided with 26 operative modes, amongst which AIA and AlS
resolulion signals, ma/cing use if Ihe LJerantp On Receive Search and Track modes (e.g. Double and Single Target
lechnique /n the experimental version the signals were re- Track, Situation Awareness Mode and Track-While-Scan),
cordedandprocessedqff/ine during the/ltghl andinlhe lab, Map modes (Real Beam Map and Doppler Beam Sharpen-
10 tune Ihe algorithms andto experience theproblems related ing) and Navigation Modes (Weather Avoidance and Terrain
to the sub-metric resolutions. A number if/ltghts, onboard Avoidance).
Ihe GA Aircrq/i, andground sessions have beenpeiformed Digital Pulse compression, four coherent waveforms allow
with ali; groundandsea cooperallve militarymovinglalgets. the Radar to operate in strong clutter operative scenarios for
The experience in the harc/u;are design and Ihe amounl if long detection range. Besides Sum channel, the auxiliary
high-resolullon data recordedhas allowedthe/inaltzatlon if channel connected to the Guard Hom or to the Monopulse
high-resolullon modes (SAR and/SA/?) inlhe last versions if (azimuth or elevation) is used to cancel antenna sidelobes or
the Gri/o Radar which is going 10 /ltghl lesl these appltca- to aim exactly the antenna towards the targets during track
tlOns in reallime on November 2()()7 modes.
Modem and effective ECCM (Electronic Counter-Counter-
Measures) provisions help the Radar to operate in presence
ofthe most used jamming sources.
1. INTRODUCTION: GRIFO RADAR The Grifo Radar is mainly devoted to weapon aiming and
release, typically for Beyond Visual Range, medium and
The Grifo Radar has been designed by Galileo Avionica - short range missiles.
Avionic Radar Business Unit (indicated as GA) in the 90's as
a multimode-multirole pulse Doppler X-band radar, for the
support of AIA and AlS missions and weapon aiming. Com- 2. PUSHING TO HIGH-RESOLUTION
posed of 7 air-cooled LRUs (refer to Figure 1), a weight of
around 100 kg and with a PO factor of around 124 dBm, At the end of 90's Galileo Avionica started upgrading of the
this radar has been selected by Air Forces for the upgrade of Grifo Radar from the architectural point of view, in order to
fighters as Mirage-III and F7/P in Pakistan, Northrop-F5 in increase the knowledge ofthe high-resolution applications.

1-4244-1539-X/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE

The main constraint to face with has been the bandwidth. in a range from 10 MHz up to 400 MHz, for resulting effec-
Having not significant limitations in the up and down con- tive resolutions from 20 meters to 0.5 meters.
version stage at X-band, the Deramp-On-Receive technique
has been selected, exploiting the unmatched advantages of
the instantaneous large bandwidth. A stepped frequency
processing has been evaluated but discarded, due to the low
effective PRF after range compression.
With this system, SAR (Spot and Strip) and ISAR (NA and
NS) could be performed.
Rx

ISAR NS ISAR NS _ ISAR-:::::::"'"

~4=s_
Figure 2 - ISAR applications Figure 4 - Radar block diagram
Spot-SAR

~
3. FLIGHT ACTIVITIES
The HR-Grifo Radar is installed onboard the Galileo Avi-
onica Test Bed Aircraft (TBA, Figure 5), a twin jet Sabreliner
80 equipped with F5 fighter radome, based in Caselle Airport
near Turin (Italy).
Strip-SAR

Figure 3 - SAR applications

Besides hardware modifications required for the implementa-

tion of the Deramp-On-Receive technique, Grifo Radar
original software has been modified, to obtain real-time high-
resolution imaging capabilities.
High resolution data acquisition in the experimental version
ofHR-Grifo is mechanised as follows.
The target to be acquired is constantly maintained under
track by the original track algorithms of Grifo radar and,
based upon track data, Deramp On Receive technique can be Figure 5 - Galileo Avionica Test Bed Aicraft
adequately performed on the desired target. When ISAR is
performed, track is firstly established actively and then, dur- More than 30 flights have been performed with this system,
ing the acquisition in high-resolution, target data are pre- in order to acquire high-resolution data. Another key-point is
dicted. In case of SAR~ on the other hand, target position is that with this flying lab, it has been possible to tune during
determined on the basis ofthe navigation data only. the flight the algorithm parameters, verifying in real-time the
As illustrated in Figure 4, during the execution of high- attainable results.
resolution applications, the signals are down-converted to The TBA has been used also to accomplish various missions
base-band in the Receiver (Rx), where Deramp is performed for acquisition of high resolution data from several type of
and then in the Processor (Px). As last step, signals are then military target under controlled environment.
filtered and digitalized in the Processor. A subset of the images on opportunity targets or unrestricted
The resulting signals are recorded on a Digital Data Recorder ground areas follows: all images have been obtained by the
and directly processed offline but in real-time on the com- real-time procedure described above.
mercial personal computer that the DDR is based upon. The
algorithms used to process the high-resolution signals are
those illustrated in references [1], [2], [3], and [4] mainly
based on [5] and [6]. 3.1 Spot-SAR
The characteristics of the acquisition (type, resolution and Amongst the numerous images obtained, four have been se-
dwell time) can be manually set by the operator through the lected, representing two targets on ground: Malpensa Interna-
Monitor, which directly interacts with the Radar. Accordingly tional Airport and a nuclear power station.
to the Grifo Radar characteristics, bandwidth may be selected
 Picture 6 7 8 9
Rangefhn/ 50.7 24.8 18.5 20.0
Range rate jm/s/ -168.5 -143.1 -124.4 -117.5
Range resoljm/ 6.0 3.0 1.5 3.0
Cross-range resoljm/ 7.0 3.5 2.0 4.1
/magesi:e 320 I 320 I 320 I 320 I
/rows I cols/ 631 488 675 434
Dwellnine /S/ 2.2 1.1 2.0 1.1
Humber iflooh 2 2 4 2
SquintAngle 16.5° 35.4° 45.2 33.2°
Tab. 1 - Acquisition parameters for the Images acqurred and proc-
essed in Spot-SAR.

In the image of Figure 6 fingers and runways are clearly visi-

ble, due to the large patch covered by the acquisition (around
2 kilometres). Despite the resolution is not indeed high and
the reduced number of looks, the image is undoubtedly use-
ful from the operative point of view. The presence of ground
movers induces the horizontal scratch visible in proximity of
runways.

In Figure 7 the main routes of access to Malpensa Airport are

visible, as well as the parking area and the Terminal 1 build-
ing, where fingers are connected. A 3.0 meters resolution
allows the identification of smaller details, with respect to Figure 8 - SAR image (resolution 1.5 m) ofthe firehouse in
Malpensa Airport
image in Figure 6.
Figure 9 represents a high-resolution image of the nuclear
power station of Trino Vercellese. The shadows of the chim-
neys are evident, and measures around 400 meters. Taking
into account the range and the vertical distance between the
Radar and the target (around 16971 ft), the height of the
chimneys has been extrapolated to be 107 meters.

Figure 6 - SAR image (resolution 6 m) ofMalpensa Airport

Figure 9 - SAR image (resolution 1.5 m) ofthe nuclear power

station ofTrino Vercellese
Figure 7 - SAR image (resolution 3 m) ofMalpensa Airport
access routes and terminal

In Figure 8 the firehouse is visible. With reference to Figure

6, this building is located between the two runways. Four
looks have been used to produce the image, with a good re- 3.2 Strip-Si\1l
duction of the speckle noise. A zoom on the building is pre-
In Strip-SAR (see Figure 10) the same algorithms adopted in
sented to highlight the efficiency ofthe focussing algorithms.
Spot-SAR are mainly used. The advantage in Strip-SAR is
straightforward: a global image of a wider area can be ob- Similar results have been obtained in Figure 12, where the
tained. ISAR image of a MD-8x airliner is presented. Following
Rangefhn/ 21.0 features have been automatically extracted: fuselage length
Range rateim/s/ -120.0 46 meters, wingspan 32 meters.
Range resolim/ 3.0
Cross-range resolim/ 4.0
/magesi:e 610 I
;rows I co/s/ 1340
Dwellnine ft/ 1.0
Number iflooh 2
SquintAngle 45°
Tab. 2 - Acquisition parameters for the Strip-SAR unage in Fig. 10.

In Figure 10 a highway joint is represented. The image is

composed by several images, whose indexes are visible on
the right hand side ofthe image.

Figure 11- ISAR image (resolution 0.5 m) ofa Boeing 747-

400

Figure 10 - ISAR image (resolution 3 m) ofa highway joint

3.3 ISARAIA
One of the most interesting applications of the high-
resolution processing is certainly the AlA Inverse-SAR. For
example, with this feature an airborne target under track can
be imaged and, with an algorithm for features extraction,
main characteristics can be measured (e.g. fuselage length,
wingspan, number and type of engines or blades, etcetera). Figure 12 - ISAR image (resolution 0.5 m) of a MD-8x
Also, in case of combat formation, similar images can be
used for target counting. AlA ISAR, hence, gives the chance
to recognize targets and to assess possible raid, avoiding the
disadvantage arising from the Radar Cross Section scintilla- 3.4 ISARAIS
tion.
As per airborne targets, AlS ISAR for seaborne movers is an
Two example of AlA ISAR images are reported in the fol-
lowing of two aicrafts in flight, captured during a flight with interesting application, deeply related to automatic features
TBA. extraction and target classification and identification. Many
missions, whether onboard the TBA or from ground sites,
Picture 11 12
have been performed, experiencing how the ISAR imaging
Rangefhn/ 45.4 14.5 may vary in accordance to the target movement. We present
Range rateim/s/ -257.1 -224.6 two AlS ISAR of commercial ships.
Range resolim/ 0.5 0.5
Picture 13 14
Cross-range resolim/ 0.6 0.7
Rangefhn/ 23.3 26.8
Dwellnine ft/ 2.2 2.0
Humber iflooh 1 1 Range resol /m/ 0.5 1.5
SquintAngle 13.5° 50° Cross-range resol /m/ 0.4 1.5
Tab. 3 - Acquisition parameters for the Strip-SAR image. Dwellnine /S/ 4.5 1.1
Humber iflooh 1 1
In Figure 11, the ISAR image of a Boeing 747-400 airliner is
SquintAngle 47.4° 32.0°
presented. Even in absence of features extraction, the classi- ...
Tab. 4 - AcqUISItIon parameters for AlA ISAR Images on ships.
fication of this aircraft is immediate. The fuselage has been
measured to be 69.5 meters long, and wingspan around 64
meters; two engines per wing can be identified as well.
Figure 13 represents the ISAR image of a tanker moving on
the Mediterranean Sea, and obtained during a flight with the
TBA: ship length has been measured to be 120 meters. The
motion of the radar and the regular movement of the ship
allowed obtaining a well-focused image, with a long dwell
time.

Figure 16 - ISAR images (resolution 1.0 m) ofa cooperative

ship target at 66.7 Ian in the duct, whereas electromagnetic
horizon is at 22.2 kilometres

Figure 13 - ISAR image (resolution 0.5 m) oftanker 4. CONCLUSIONS

Grifo Radar, well experienced avionic radar for weapon re-
Image in Figure 14 represents the ISAR image of a smaller lease from Galileo Avionica, has been upgraded with high
tanker moving on the Mediterranean Sea obtained during a resolution capabilities, for SAR and ISAR applications. This
flight with the TBA: ship length has been measured as 90 device, in many missions on ground tests and flying onboard
meters. The movement of the target, apparently due to sea a test bed aircraft, has been employed to acquire and process
state, allowed the appearance of the ship profile, extremely high-resolution signals, which have been used to develop,
useful from the point ofview ofthe identification. tune and optimize the GA proprietary algorithms for high-
resolution modes.
A complete version of the Grifo shall fly between the first
and second quarter 2008, with full real time capabilities.

REFERENCES
[1] A. Aprile, A. Mauri, and D. Pastina: 'Real Time Rota-
tional Motion Compensation algorithm for focusing Spot-
SAR / ISAR images in case of variable rotation-rate', Proc.
Eurad 2004 Cont: Amsterdam, Netherland, October 2004,
pag.141.
Figure 14 - ISAR image (resolution 1.5 m) ofa tanker (profile) [2] A. Aprile, D. Meledandri, T. Macri Pellizzeri, A. Mauri:
'TRMC: a single processing chain for SARIISAR imaging',
submitted to 2008 IEEE Radar Conference.
3.5 ISAR A1S in the duct [3] A. Aprile, D. Meledandri, T. Macri Pellizzeri, A. Mauri:
'A new approach for estimation and compensation of target
An important experiment has been performed to verify the
translational motion in ISAR imaging', submitted to 2008
property of propagation in the duct.
IEEE Radar Conference.
We installed the HR-Grifo in a building facing the sea, at 6
[4] A. Aprile, A. Mauri, N. Pendeggia: 'Partitioning and par-
meters above sea level. Under this condition, due to earth
allelization schemes for a real-time implementation of the
curvature, the maximum expected range (Le. magnetic hori-
RMC algorithm', submitted to 2008 IEEE Radar Conference.
zon, see Figure 15) is 22.2 km.
[5] Wehner, D.R.: 'High-Resolution Radar' (Artech House,
Due to the effect of the propagation in the duct, the coopera-
1995).
tive target provided was detected, tracked and imaged in
[6] Jakowatz, C.V. Jr., Wahl, D.E., Eichel, P.H., Ghiglia,
high-resolution up to 66.7 km (refer to Figure 16).
D.C., and Thompson, P.A.: 'Spotlight-mode Synthetic Aper-
ture Radar: a signal processing approach' (Kluwer Academic
RADAR
Publishers, 1996, 2nd edn. 2006)
~-------~-~--~---------- [7] A. Damini, C. Parry, GE. Haslam: 'Swathbuckler - Radar
Electromagnetic Horizont
System and Signal Processing', Proc. 2006 IEEE Radar Con-
Equivalent
/' Earth Curvature ference, April 2006.

Figure 15 - Geometry ofthe experiment concerning the propagation

in the duct. Radar is placed at 6 meters above the sea level