THE EFFECTS OF INTERFERENCE ON MONOPULSE PERFORMANCE

The first and second moments of the monopulse azimuth estimates are used to characterize the estimator performance in a background of mainbeam or side-lobe multipath or ATCRBS interference. An exact expression for the bias error is obtained that not only accounts for the bias due to targets separated in azimuth but also demonstrates the effect of fading or signal cancellation. For a target signal at a 20 dB signal-to-noise ratio, it is shown that the fading effect produces negligible bias unless the signal-to-interference ratio is between plus or minus 2.5 dB. A first order expression for the variance is obtained that demonstrates that an increase in the random error will occur due to the target separation in azimuth and due to signal fades. The exact nature of the bias and variance depend strongly on the relative phase between the target and interference signals with the poorest performance being obtained at the in- and out-of-phase conditions. It is knowledge of this behaviour that is essential in evaluating the idea of azimuth estimation data editing. (Author)

• Corporate Authors:

  Lincoln Laboratory

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  Lexington, MA  United States  02173
• Authors:
  • McAulay, R J
• Publication Date: 1973-8-1

Media Info

• Pagination: 35 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Air traffic control radar beacon system; Azimuth; Electromagnetic interference; Mode S; Multipath transmission; Radar air traffic control; Radar beacons
• Identifier Terms: U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
• Uncontrolled Terms: Degradation
• Old TRIS Terms: Atcrbs air traffic control radar beacon systems; Dabs discrete address beacon systems; Faa; Monopulse radar
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00051609
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: TN-1973-30 Tech Note
• Contract Numbers: DOT-FA72WAI-261
• Files: NTIS
• Created Date: Mar 25 1974 12:00AM