Development of C-Band RF Front-end of Precision Coherent Mono-pulse C-Band Radar

Abstract

A compact, robust and high performance front-end of a radar receiver is designed and demonstrated in this paper. The important parameters like noise figure, sensitivity, selectivity, dynamic range and tracking range are superior to that of the existing systems and facilitate online monitoring of the above important parameters. The gain and phase matching facility are incorporated. The local oscillator is integrated within the module which in turn reduces the losses as compare with the existing local oscillator, placed in the instrumentation cabin. The frequency, amplitude, delay between skin and transponder frequency can be controlled remotely by computer program. Therefore, the mixed mode operation (skin and transponder) of radar receiver is possible. Moreover, the SPDT switch is integrated in the same module for RF simulation to facilitate the three channel mono-pulse receiver calibration, receiver health monitoring and range calibration of precision coherent mono-pulse C-band radar. The components used are monolithic microwave integrated circuit based technologies with superior specifications, makes the total module miniaturized and reduced the hardware complications. The total power consumption is much less and improves the overall performance than the existing front-end.

Defence Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 4, July 2014, pp. 358-365, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.4245