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Blind Speed PRT fD1 fD2 Figure 1: Blind speed in connexion with the Doppler-shift At the comparison of the echoes between two or more pulse periods the fall can a ppear, that the airplane flies with exactly this one radial speed, some a phase shifting of correct 360 causes. In accordance with the periodicity of the sine fu nction this fall can appear even at all integral multiples of n 360. The value of phase shifting is zero in these falls too. Well, the target isn't recognized as a moving target therefore. It flies with a so called blind speed and the MTI sys tem won't report it li e a ground clutter. The blind speed is dependent on the transmitted frequency and on the pulse repet ition frequency of the radar unit. vblind = ? where: vblind = one of the blind speeds ? = wavelength of the transmitted pulse Ts = pulse repetition time (PRT) (1) 2Ts With reference to the lower diagram on the figure 1: If the Doppler frequency produced by a moving target is exactly the same as the PRF (fD = PRF) then sampling occurs at the same point on each Doppler cycle. As fa r as the signal processor is concerned, it is as if the target were stationary. The same effect occurs if fD is an integer multiple of PRF. Hence targets with c ertain radial velocities tend to be invisible to an MTI pulse radar. The blind speed is a radial speed of the airplane at which the phase shifting of the echo-signal has the value n 360 between two pulse periods. With blind speeds moving targets are suppressed by a MTI system li e ground clutters. Example given: A radar unit wor s with the tx-frequency of 2.8 GHz and a puls repetition time o f 1.5 ms. Under these conditions the first blind speed has got the value: vblind = ? = c0 = 3108 = 35,72 m/s c0 = spe ed of light (2) 2Ts 2fTs 22,81091,510-3 This speed of converted about 130 m/h and all integral multiples of this also w ell cause that the target isn't visible in the range of the effectiveness of the MTI system. Due to the periodicity of a measured Doppler frequency is only in the period fro m zero to the first maximum of the sine wave in Figure 1 (representing the Doppl er frequency) unambiguously assigned to a velocity. The doppler frequency must b e lower than the pulse repetition frequency. This ambiguity in measurements of v elocity is called Doppler Dilemma. Simple measures against the appearance of blind speeds are: Using of the coherence channel only if it is necessary This demand also arises that the amplitude channel ( Normal Video ) has a better maximum range than the Coho-channel .

constantly changing of the TX- frequency (Frequency-Diversity) It is demanded a sufficiently large frequency spacing. constantly changing of the pulse repetition time (Staggered PRT) Most effective resource: no airplane can change its speed so fast and synchr onous still to this! However, all these measures are part of the standards of air-surveillance radar sets already. Publisher: Christian Wolff Text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License, and the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Ali e 3.0 Unported license, additional terms may apply.