JPH04178590A - Antenna tracking radar device of electronic scanning type - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To have a tracking scan with good time efficiency by specifying directional addresses divided unitary beam width by width of the radar, and performing controls so that a duplicate prevention type beam direction controller makes one transmission per directional address within one tracking period. CONSTITUTION:A duplicate prevention type beam direction controller 1 has a function to ignore the same data being fed about the directional address data given by a target processing apparatus 9 within one tracking period, and sends phase shift control signals for tracking in breaks during EL scan to an electronic scanning antenna 8 one after another in such a way as complying with the system timing for control of the beam direction and also sends the directional address data to a target sensor 6. When tracking is commenced, the target processing apparatus 9 repeats the update of tracking, and only the search scanning is performed if no target is got within one search period and there is no target to be tracked at all.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field] The present invention relates to an electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a conventional electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a time series of scanning and tracking in the conventional method, and FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of direction classification.

This electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device includes an electronic scanning antenna 8, a radar transceiver 7 that transmits and receives radar radio waves, and a target detector 6 that detects the target position from the radar received video and outputs target detection data. , a target processor 9 that tracks the target position and predicts the next scanning position, and controls the phase shifter of the electronic scanning antenna 8 in synchronization with the system timing signal based on the direction address data for each tracked target. The radar display 10 displays target tracking data.

Here, the target processor 9 further includes a tracking main processing section 4 that tracks the target position and outputs tracking data to the radar display 10, and a next period scanning position prediction processing section 3 that predicts the position at the time of the next scan. and a direction address determination unit 2 that determines a direction address based on the predicted position.

Normally, the beam direction of an electronic scanning antenna is defined by direction addresses divided into sections with a width approximately equal to the beam width along the vertical and horizontal axes of elevation and azimuth within the radar coverage area, as shown in FIG.

Conventionally, in this type of electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device, there is a search period in which the entire radar coverage area is searched to capture targets that have newly entered the coverage area. Start tracking. Since the search cycle is very long, normally tracking scans are performed several times during the search period to direct the beam to the predicted position of each tracked target, in order to achieve the tracking update cycle required by air traffic control. For example, as shown in Figure 6,
Scans for tracking individual targets are interposed between search periods (hereinafter referred to as EL scans) in which one azimuth is scanned in the elevation direction.

First, for scanning during the search period, the beam direction controller 11 sequentially sends a phase shift control signal to the phase shifter of the electronic scanning antenna in accordance with the system timing signal from the radar transceiver 7 to control the beam radiation direction. do. At the same time, the radar transceiver 7 transmits data in accordance with the system timing signal, and emits a beam from the electronic scanning antenna 8. When the emitted beam hits a target, the reflected wave is received by the radar transceiver 7 via the electronically scanned antenna 8 and the received video is input to the target detector 6. The position of the target is detected by the target detector 6 and output to the target processor 9 as digital data. The target detection data is registered in the track file 5 as a new tracking target by the tracking main processing unit 4 of the target processor 9, and if a target correlated with it is similarly obtained in the next search cycle, the next cycle scanning position is The prediction processing unit 3 predicts and calculates the position of the next scan, registers the predicted position in the track file 5 for tracking in the next scan, and the direction address determination unit 2 determines the direction address of the predicted position. Based on the direction address data from the target processor 9, the beam direction controller 11 sequentially sends a phase shift control signal for tracking to the electronic scanning antenna 8 in accordance with the system timing signal between EL scans to change the beam radiation direction. and send direction address data to the target detector 6. When tracking is started in this manner, tracking updates are repeated in the target processor 9 at a tracking cycle as shown in FIG. 6 based on the detection data of the tracking target between EL scans. Tracking is updated by correlating the predicted position and target detection data for each tracking target to which a response is expected. Note that if no target is obtained in the search cycle and there is no tracked target at all, only search scanning is performed.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] The conventional electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device described above has the following problems:
When scanning a tracking cycle, even if multiple target aircraft fall within a single radar beam, the transmission is to be sent to each of the multiple aircraft, so it is possible to repeat the transmission in the same direction and calculate the number of such multiple occasions. This results in wasted transmission time due to duplicate transmissions, and as the tracking cycle becomes longer, the search cycle becomes longer and initial acquisition is delayed, and the tracking update cycle is limited, which limits the capacity for the number of tracking aircraft. It has the disadvantage of being

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device that eliminates redundant transmission when a plurality of targets are included in a radar beam and performs time-efficient tracking scanning.

[Means for Solving the Problems 1] The electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device of the present invention sequentially receives direction address data of each tracking target from a target processor,
The beam direction controller controls the beam radiation direction of the electronically scanning antenna in accordance with the system timing signal, and when the same direction address data is received within the tracking period, it is ignored. have.

[Operation] Direction addresses are determined by subdividing radar beam width units, and the duplication-preventing beam direction controller controls one transmission for one direction address within the tracking cycle, so that the radar beam is subdivided into units of beam width, and the beam direction controller controls one transmission for one direction address within the tracking period. Even if there are multiple targets, they can be tracked with one transmission.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a direction address, and Fig. 3 is an example of a time series of search and tracking scans of the present invention. The figure shown in FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram when the PAR device is applied to landing.

This electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device includes an electronic scanning antenna 8 and a radar transceiver 7 that transmits and receives radar radio waves.
, a target detector 6 that detects the target position from the radar received video and outputs target detection data, and a target processor 9 that tracks the target position and predicts the next scanning position.
Based on the direction address data for each tracking target, duplication prevention controls the phase shifter of the electronic scanning antenna 8 in synchronization with the system timing signal so as not to send duplicate transmissions to one direction address within the tracking cycle. It consists of a beam direction controller 1 and a radar display 10 that displays target tracking data.

Here, the target processor 9 further includes a tracking main processing section 4 that tracks the target position and outputs tracking data to the radar display 10, and a next period scanning position prediction processing section 3 that predicts the position at the time of the next scan. and a direction address determining section 2 that determines a direction address based on the predicted position.

For scanning in the search period, the anti-duplication beam direction controller 1 sequentially sends a phase shift control signal to the phase shifter of the electronic scanning antenna 8 in accordance with the system timing signal from the radar transceiver 7 to change the beam radiation direction. control. At the same time, radar transceiver 7 transmits and emits a beam from electronically scanning antenna 8 in accordance with the system timing signal.

When the emitted beam hits a target, the reflected wave is received by the radar transceiver 7 via the electronically scanned antenna 8 and the received video is input to the target detector 6. The target position is detected by the target detector 6 and output as digital data to the target processor 9. The target detection data is registered in the track file 5 as a new tracking target by the tracking main processing unit 4 of the target processor 9, and if a target correlated with it is obtained in the same way in the next search cycle, the target detection data is registered in the track file 5 as a new tracked target. The scan position prediction processing unit 3 predicts and calculates the position of the next scan,
The predicted position is registered in the track file 5 for tracking in the next cycle scan, and the direction address determination unit 2 determines the predicted position direction address. The duplication prevention type beam direction controller 1 has a function to ignore the same direction address data from the target processor 9 within the tracking cycle, and to avoid tracking between EL scans. A phase shift control signal is sent to the electronic scanning antenna 8 sequentially in accordance with the system timing to control the beam direction and send direction address data to the target detector 6.

In this manner, when tracking is started, tracking updates are repeated in the target processor 9 at the tracking cycle as shown in FIG. 3 based on the tracking target detection data between EL scans. Tracking is updated in units of direction addresses by correlating each target detection data with the predicted position of the tracked target for which one or more responses are expected. Further, if no target is obtained in the search cycle and there is no tracked target at all, only search scanning is performed. Further, during landing, a PAR device (precision radar device) used for landing guidance and control is used, and a conceptual diagram when this is applied to the present invention is as shown in FIG. That is, when transmitting radio waves to a target from the electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device 13 during the tracking period, targets having the same direction address can be captured by one transmission of the radar beam 15 as shown in the figure. In particular, when a PAR device is used to land at the touchdown point 14 on the runway 12, the aircraft are concentrated on the glide path 16, so many aircraft are concentrated at the same direction address.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention performs transmission for each direction address, so when there are multiple aircraft within the radar beam,
No longer transmits to each aircraft, reducing the number of transmissions by eliminating duplication compared to the conventional method, resulting in a shorter search cycle, eliminating delays in initial acquisition, and reducing the number of aircraft being tracked. This has the effect of freeing up capacity and allowing time-efficient tracking scanning.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a direction address, and Fig. 3 is an example of a time series of search and tracking scans of the present invention. Figure 4 is a conceptual diagram when the PAR device is applied to landing.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a conventional electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a time series of conventional search and tracking scans. 1... Duplication prevention type beam direction controller, 2...
. . . Direction address determination unit, 3 . . . Next cycle scanning position prediction processing unit, 4 . . .
...Tracking main processing unit, 5...Track file, 6...Target detector, 7...Radar transceiver, 8...Electronic scanning antenna , 9...Target processor, 10...Radar display, 11...
・Beam direction controller, 12... Runway, 13... Electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device,
14...Touchdown point, 15...
...Radar beam, 16...Glide path.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In an electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device, the direction address data of each tracking target is sequentially received from a target processor, and the beam radiation direction of the electronic scanning antenna is controlled in accordance with a system timing signal; At this time, an electronic scanning antenna tracking radar device characterized by having a duplication prevention type beam direction controller which ignores the same direction address data as the previous one within the tracking cycle.