RU2280264C2 - Multifunctional radio-locator - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: radio engineering, in particular, radiolocation, possible use for observing frontal hemisphere, measuring flight height of light maneuverable planes and helicopters, having minimal equipment, and also for preventing collisions with other aircrafts, high power communication lines, towers, pipes and the like.

SUBSTANCE: multifunctional radio-locator contains phased antenna array, supporting quartz generator, impulse power amplifier, antenna switch, low-noise amplifier, video detector, digital computing device and liquid-crystalline indicator, and also additionally includes second of the following: supporting quartz generator, impulse power amplifier, antenna switch, phased antenna array, low-noise amplifier and video detector.

EFFECT: increased flight safety of light motor aircraft due to radio locator, combining functions of both surveillance radio locator and height meter.

4 cl, 3 dwg

Description

The invention relates to radio engineering, in particular to radar, and can be used to view the front hemisphere and measure the flight altitude of light maneuverable aircraft and helicopters with a minimum of instrumentation. It can also be used to prevent collisions with other aircraft, high-voltage power lines, towers, pipes, etc.

Light motor aviation (LA) is a type of aviation of small tonnage (1-3 tons) and passenger capacity (4-12) of people, including the pilot. This type of aviation is very widespread in the USA, Canada, Australia and other countries, for example, in the USA, the total number of light-engine aircraft reaches several hundred thousand. At present, light-engine aviation is becoming widespread in Russia, if previously only one type of light-engine aircraft was widely produced (the well-known An-2), then at present, almost all aircraft manufacturing companies produce light-engine aircraft, for example, Be-103, Che-25 and etc. A feature of such aircraft (including foreign ones) is the minimum instrument flight equipment: this is mainly a speed indicator, an air pressure receiver with a sensor for angle of attack and slip, and an altimeter, even the horizon is set to it’s not on all types, and the radar is not put anywhere, for obvious reasons, although the need and desirability of its use is obvious. With the development of microcircuitry and microwave technology, this task becomes a reality.

It should also be noted that barometric flight altitude indicators are usually used in aircraft, which is quite enough when flying on flat terrain, but not in hilly, especially in mountainous, especially in conditions of poor visibility. It is desirable to have a radio altimeter, but this, of course, is an increase in weight: together with an indicator, antennas (transmitting and receiving), even at the current level of microelectronics, this is ≈4 kg, which is far from always acceptable.

Therefore, if there is a radar on board, it begs to use the synchronizing computing and indicator part of the survey radar for measuring and indicating flight altitude, the antenna system of the radio altimeter, of course, will be separate. This will significantly reduce the overall mass characteristics (GMC) of the radio altimeter. In addition, the cost will also decrease significantly.

There is a well-known aircraft radar for viewing the front hemisphere and the Earth’s surface, which are installed on almost all medium and long-range civil aircraft of the USSR, Russia and the CIS, see “Development of Aviation Science and Technology in the USSR”, Moscow: Nauka, 1980, p. 386, 391. This storm radar, or rather the “Thunderstorm” radar sight (RLV), serves to determine the location of the aircraft with respect to radar-contrasting landmarks and to identify safe passages in thunderstorm fronts.

With a successful design and acceptable tactical and technical characteristics, this radar station also has large GMH and power consumption, i.e. there is no need to talk about its use on light-engine aircraft.

Satellite navigation systems are known, i.e. determining the location of the aircraft at a given moment, showing the geographical latitude and longitude, as well as the air situation within a radius of 10-15 km from this aircraft, see "Portable receivers" on the Internet Garvin.ru, aviation receivers, GPS 12 Pilot +.

With extremely small GMCs, this system has the following disadvantages:

- quite expensive, about a few thousand dollars;

- does not show (does not signal) a dangerous approach to another plane.

Currently, in heavy and medium (in terms of tonnage) aviation, the international “TCAS Collision Avoidance System”, which is used by almost all world aviation, is widely used to prevent collisions in the air and with the earth's surface. This system is quite expensive, has quite large GMCs, requires two protruding antennas, does not show the radar topography of the earth's surface, such as land / water, does not show the presence of lightning fronts, requires all aircraft to be equipped with active transponders.

The well-known radar (radar) CRS for helicopter combat support Longbow (Hugh Cobra), which has the following technical characteristics:

- range of 8 km;

- ultrashort range;

- detection and tracking of air targets in the front hemisphere;

- radar environment of the earth's surface (land / water);

- the issuance of information on the indicator.

Disadvantages: large GMH: length 175 cm, diameter 17.8 cm, weight 49 kg. It is located on the external suspension on the pylon, hence the excessive drag, as well as functional redundancy for the aircraft.

The well-known "Monopulse coherent radar", see RF patent No. 2234714, in which, with minimal GMC, high technical characteristics are obtained, but there is no radio altimeter, i.e. insufficiently functional - PROTOTYPE.

An object of the invention is to increase the flight safety of a light-engine aircraft due to:

- issuing visual information (displaying it on the indicator screen) to the pilot about the air and ground radar situation in the front hemisphere;

- the issuance of alarming sound (speech) and light information about a dangerous approach to another plane or a high ground obstacle (such as a tower, pipe, power line, etc.);

- issuing on-screen indicator of visual information on the flight altitude over the terrain, which is especially important in mountainous conditions.

To solve this problem, a multifunctional radar is proposed, which contains a phased antenna array, a reference crystal oscillator, a pulsed power amplifier, an antenna switch, a low-noise amplifier, a video detector, a digital computing device and a liquid crystal indicator, characterized in that it also includes a second reference crystal oscillator, a pulse power amplifier, antenna switch, phased array, low noise amplifier and video detector with the following their connections: output of the digital computing device via the control inputs of the first and second power amplifiers through the first and second antenna switches input / output connected to the first and second phased array antenna, respectively; the outputs of the first and second antenna switches through the first and second low-noise amplifiers and a video detector are connected to a digital computing device, the output of which is connected to a liquid crystal indicator, the output of the second low-noise amplifier and the output of the second reference crystal oscillator are additionally connected to a digital computing device, the first and second reference crystal oscillators connected to the frequency inputs of the first and second power amplifiers, respectively; both phased antenna arrays consist of four dipoles located in a rhombus, and the excitation points of these dipoles are connected to the outputs of the diagram-forming circuits of the antenna switches in such a way that the first and second dipoles form a line of the horizontal polarization component, and the third and fourth vertical; the first phased antenna array is located in the bow perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, and the second under or behind the passenger cabin parallel to the horizontal plane of the aircraft; the liquid crystal indicator has a vertical ribbon on the edge, on which the current flight altitude is displayed, and a segment scale, on which the radar situation of the front hemisphere is displayed, and approaching the plane or obstacle is highlighted with a red target mark, and the green distance is also near or above The brightness mark indicates the distance to the target and the speed of approach or removal.

Figure 1 shows the structural diagram of a multifunctional radar, figure 2 - LCD panel with elevations and targets, figure 3 - arrangement of dipoles of phased antenna arrays, which depict: 1 and 2 - reference crystal oscillators (OKG) ( the first and second, respectively), 3 and 4 power amplifiers, 5 and 6 - the first and second antenna switches (AP) with diagram-forming circuits, 7 and 8 - the first and second low-noise amplifiers (LNA), 9 and 10 - the first and second video detectors (VD), 11 - digital computing device (CVU), 12 - liquid crystal sky indicator (LCD), 13 and 14 - the first and second phased antenna arrays (PAR).

The multifunctional radar contains phased array antennas 13 and 14, reference crystal oscillators 1 and 2, pulsed power amplifiers 3 and 4, antenna switches 5 and 6, low-noise amplifiers 7 and 8, video detectors 9 and 10, digital computing device 11, liquid crystal display 12 with the following connections: the output of the digital computing device 11 through the control inputs of the first and second power amplifiers 3, 4 and through the first and second antenna switches 5, 6 input / output connected to the first and second phased and the antenna array 13, 14, respectively; the outputs of the first and second antenna switches 5, 6 through the first and second low-noise amplifiers 7, 8 and video detectors 9, 10 are connected to a digital computing device 11, the output of which is connected to a liquid crystal indicator 12, the output of the second low-noise amplifier 8 and the output of the second reference crystal oscillator 2 additionally connected to a digital computing device 11, the first and second reference crystal oscillators 1, 2 are connected to the frequency inputs of the first and second power amplifiers 3, 4, respectively.

The indicated nodes and blocks of the multifunctional radar can be performed on the following ERE and IC: OKG according to the scheme, see "Semiconductor circuitry" U. Titze and K. Schenk, M .: Mir, 1982, pp. 300-301; pulsed power amplifiers according to the scheme, see "Radio receivers", ed. N.N. Fomina, M, P and S, 1996, p. 84; AP - see "Antennas and Microwave Devices", ed. D.I. Voskresensky, M .: R and S, 1994, p. 293-333; ferrite circulars 6 according to the scheme, see "Antennas and microwave devices", ed. D.I. Voskresensky, M .: R and S, 1994, p. 293-333; LNA - see "Microelectronic Microwave Devices", ed. G.N. Veselova, Moscow: Higher School, 1988, p. 173, 201; VD - see "Radio receivers", ed. N.N. Fomina, M .: R and S, 1996, p. 314; A TsVU is, for example, a microprocessor manufactured by Jntel 80C 188 EC-16, see the catalog “Sector of electronic components. Russia-99 ”, Moscow: DODEKA, 1999, p. 487; LCD - firms POWERTYPPG-12864A 128 × 64 dots with backlight, see Aktiv-Matrix-LCD's LDE052T-12 320 × 40 5.1 N 46029, TECHNISCHER KATALOG 96/97, Setron, p. 466 38032, Brauschweig, Germany ; phased antenna arrays, see RF patent No. 2234714, power amplifiers 3 and 4, see the Guide to radar, t.4, ed. M. Skolnik, Moscow: Sov. Radio 1978, p. 178.

Multifunctional radar operates as follows. TsVU 11 determines all the temporal relationships of the radar as a whole and its frequencies among themselves. A signal is supplied to the control inputs of pulsed power amplifiers 3 and 4, through which radio pulses with filling frequencies f ₁ and f _2, respectively, are generated at their outputs, which through AP1 and AP2 go to the first 13 and second 14 antennas, where they are emitted through dipoles into space. The first antenna 13 together with AP5, LNA 7, VD9, OKG1 and a pulse power amplifier 3 forms a path of a radio altimeter, and the second antenna 14 with APS5, LNA 8, VD 10 and a pulse power amplifier 4 forms a range-measuring path. After the emission of a radio pulse in each path, the antenna switches 5 and 6 are switched to reception by the signal of the CVU 11. Reflected radio pulses from the earth's surface and from the target, for example, an oncoming plane, are received by antennas 13 and 14, respectively, and through AP5 and AP they arrive at LNA 7 and LNA 8, respectively, where they are amplified, then detected at VD 9 and VD 10 and fed to CVI 11 , where according to the well-known formula L = v · t / 2, the distance to the earth's surface (height) and to the target is determined, and the approach speed (in the rangefinder path) is determined by the Doppler effect.

L is the distance to the earth's surface (height) and to the target in km;

V is the propagation velocity of radio waves ≈300000 km / s;

t is the time between the emitted and reflected radio pulses, in sec.

The processed pulses are fed to the LCD 12, where the indication is displayed: the radio height in the form of a vertical column with digital indication, and the distance to the target in the form of a brightness mark indicating the approach speed.

This construction of the radar and its construct allows to minimize the electronic circuit and in the small dimensions of the computing part and indicator, combine the measurement of height and range. The phased antenna arrays 13 and 14 each have four dipole emitters, the arrays themselves have dimensions 25 × 25 × 10 cm, weighing up to 1 kg, which is quite small. Moreover, the technical characteristics according to the test results are as follows.

The approximate data of the proposed radar are as follows (with a direct radar frequency of 1.2-1.3 GHz, 4.2 GHz radio altimeter): the total weight of the radar together with both antennas is no more than 3 kg, the range of the radar is 12-15 km, the height determination ( N) 50-500 m with an accuracy of 0.01 N, pulse power less than 100 W, τ imp = 100 μs (time-dependent), repetition frequency 10 kHz, beam width 20 °, total needle-shaped beam no less than 5 ° vertical and horizontal, the number of emitters in each antenna (with the given data) is 4, addition m generality emitters - spatial.

The weight of modern radio altimeters such as A-052, A-053, together with antennas and an indicator, is 3-4 kg, which is too big for an aircraft.

The construction of the construct according to the proposed method, i.e. the combination of determining the altitude and range with one control unit, calculation and indication leads to a significant reduction in GMC with quite satisfactory technical characteristics. This radar construct allows you to equip them with most small aircraft, which will significantly increase flight safety. The proposed radar allows you to additionally monitor the terrain (land / water) and detect lightning fronts, which further increases the comfort of control.

Claims (4)

1. A multifunctional radar comprising a phased array, a reference crystal oscillator, a pulsed power amplifier, an antenna switch, a low noise amplifier, a video detector, a digital computing device and a liquid crystal indicator, characterized in that the second ones are additionally introduced into it: a reference crystal oscillator, a pulse power amplifier , antenna switch, phased array, low-noise amplifier and video detector with the following connections: digital output device through the control inputs of the first and second power amplifiers and through the first and second antenna switches, the input / output is connected to the first and second phased antenna array, respectively, the outputs of the first and second antenna switch through the first and second low-noise amplifiers and a video detector are connected to a digital computing device, the output of which is connected to a liquid crystal indicator, the output of the second low-noise amplifier and the output of the second reference crystal oscillator additionally with connected to a digital computing device, the first and second reference crystal oscillators are connected to the frequency inputs of the first and second power amplifiers, respectively. 2. The multifunctional radar according to claim 1, characterized in that both phased antenna arrays consist of four dipoles located in a rhombus, and the excitation points of these dipoles are connected to the outputs of the diagram-forming circuits of the antenna switches so that the first and second dipoles form a line of the horizontal polarization component and the third and fourth are vertical. 3. The multifunctional radar according to claim 1, characterized in that the first phased antenna array is located in the bow perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, and the second under or behind the passenger cabin parallel to the horizontal plane of the aircraft. 4. The multifunctional radar according to claim 1, characterized in that the liquid crystal indicator has a vertical ribbon scale on the edge, on which the current flight altitude is displayed, and a segmented scale in the center, on which the radar situation of the front hemisphere is displayed, and the approach to the plane or obstacle is highlighted the target’s brightness mark is red and the distance is green, the distance to the target and the speed of approach or removal are also displayed next to or above the brightness mark.

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