Mil AND PI1IJR DOI'IMFR KADAH

is possible to combine Ihc Iwo techniques for compensating pint form motion and scanning
modulation.5*
If the antenna sidelobcs of an airborne MTI radar are not sufficiently low, the clutter that
enters the receiver via the sidelobes can set a limit to the improvement factor equal to !s

where G(0) is the one-way power gain of the antenna in the plane of the ground surface. The
lower integral is taken outside the main-beam region. This assumes the sidelobcs are well
distributed in azimuth. The constant K is the average gain of the delay line canceler (K — 2
for a two-pulse canceler and 6 for a three-pulse canceler.) The combined improvement factor for
DPCA and the sibelobe limitation is

Adaptive array antennas may be employed to compensate for platform motion in an

AMTI radar.67 The full array is illuminated on transmission so that the transmit pattern is the
same from pulse to pulse. On receive, the array is made adaptive by obtaining a separate
output from each element. Each element output can be weighted separately and the outputs
added together to form an aperture illumination function that adaptively permits motion of
the antenna phase center so as to compensate for platform motion. Adaptive loops are also
used in the delay-line canceler to control the doppler response of the canceler as well as the
antenna angular response. In addition, compensation for scattering from near-field aircraft
structure that distorts the antenna pattern and degrades AMTI performance can also be
performed with this adaptive circuitry, as can the adaptive nulling of external interference
sources.
For applications that cannot afford a fully adaptive array antenna, a design procedure can
be formulated that applies an optimal correction to an arbitrary receive array antenna pattern
based on the use of a least-mean-squares algorithm to minimize the total clutter residue of an
AMTI radar averaged over all angles. 74

Sidelobes and pulse-doppler radar. Since the pulse-doppler radar is capable of good MTI
performance, it is also a good AMTI radar. However, if the antenna sidelobes are not low, the
clutter that enters the radar via the sidelobes can limit the improvement factor, as mentioned
previously [Eq. (4.40)]. The effect of the sidelobe clutter must often be considered in the design
of the signal processor of an airborne pulse-doppler radar.
The spectrum of the signal received by an airborne pulse-doppler radar might appear as
in Fig. 4.36. Only that portion of the spectrum in the vicinity of the carrier frequency f0 is
shown since the prf of a pulse-doppler radar is chosen to avoid overlap of target signals from
adjacent spectral lines (no blind speeds). Thus the prf is at least twice the maximum target
doppler-frequency. The leakage of the transmitter signal into the receiver produces the spike at
a frequency f0 and the spikes at / 0 ± nfp where n is an integer and/, is the pulse repetition
frequency. Also in the vicinity of/o is the clutter energy from the sidelobes which illuminate Ihe
ground directly beneath the aircraft. The echo from the ground directly beneath the aircraft is
called the altitude return. The altitude return is not shifted in frequency since the relative
velocity between radar and ground is essentially zero. Clutter to either side of the perpendicu -
lar will have a relative-velocity component and hence some doppler frequency shift; con-
sequently Ihe clutter spectrum from the altitude return will be of finite width. The shape ofthe
 44 INTRODUCTION TO RADAR SYSTEMS m

two separate antennas with the distance between them equal to T p v x = T p v s i n ()„, where
0a m angle between velocity vector of the vehicle and the antenna beam-pointing direction,
and T p = pulse repetition period. One pulse is transmitted on the forward antenna, and the ....
other pulse is transmitted on the rear antenna so that the two pulses from the two differenl
antennas are transmitted and received at the same point in space. The result is as if ihe
radar antenna were stationary. The distance traveled between pulses is generally less than
the antenna dimension so that the two antenna beams might be generated with two
overlapping reflector antennas or with a phased array divided into two overlapping ^
subarrays. 64 The effective separation between the antennas, 7 p v,, varies with Ihe angle
0a as well as the aircraft velocity v. With reflector antennas, it is not convenient to change
the antenna physical separation to compensate for changes in 0a or p. The pulse repetition
period Tf might be varied to provide compensation, but this can introduce other complica
tions into the radar design and the signal processing. With a phased array divided into two
overlapping subarrays, a constant pulse repetition frequency can be used and the horizontal
separation of the two overlapping subarrays can be controlled electronically to compensate for
platform motion. However, it is possible to change the effective phase center of a reflector ■'
antenna by employing two feeds to produce two squinted overlapping beams, as in an
amplitude-comparison monopulse radar (Sec. 5.4). The outputs of the two feeds are combined
using a hybrid junction to produce a sum pattern X and a difference pattern A. By taking
£ + jkA, the effective phase center can be shifted depending on the value of k. (The factor;
multiplying the difference pattern signifies a 90° phase shift added to the difference signal
relative to the sum signal.) The use of this technique in an AMTI radar to compensate for the
effects of platform motion is called DPCA, which stands for Displaced Phase Center Antenna.
The sum and difference patterns can be obtained by connecting a hybrid junction to the
outputs of the two antenna feeds as described in Sec. 5.4. The sum pattern is used on transmit
and both the sum and the difference patterns are extracted on receive. The signal received on
the difference pattern is weighted by the factor k, shifted in phase by 90° and is added to the
sum-pattern signal in the delayed channel and subtracted from the sum-pattern signal in the
undelayed channel. Because of the phase relationships between the lobes of the difference
pattern and the sum pattern, the result is an apparent forward displacement of the paltern on
the first transmission, and a displacement to the rear on the second transmission. When Ihe —
gains of the sum and difference channels are properly adjusted, and when the distance between
the phase centers of the two antenna beams is 2TP vx the combined sum and difference patterns
on successive pulses illuminate the same region and the antenna appears stationary. 5" (The
factor 2 appears in the distance between phase centers, as a result of using both feeds for
transmission. The phase center on transmit is half-way between the two feeds, and the phase
center on receive alternates from one feed to the other.) As the antenna pointing-direction
changes from the port to starboard side of the vehicle, the sign of the difference signal must be
reversed to keep the displaced beams in the proper orientation.
«
.
The dashed curves of Fig. 4.35 show the improvement in MTI processing that is theo
retically possible with DPCA and a three-pulse delay-line canceler. (Note that the DPCA
corrects only one canceler of a multiple-stage MTI. 63) The curve for x = 0 applies for no
platform motion and represents the maximum improvement offered by an idea platform-
motion cancellation method. It is seen that when the clutter spectral width is small, as for ^
overland clutter, a significant improvement is offered by DPCA.
The limitation to the improvement factor due to antenna rotation, or scanning modula
tion, can be reduced by a method similar to DPCA. 51 "" DPCA applies the difference
pattern in quadrature (90° phase shift) to the sum pattern while compensation for scanning
modulation requires the difference pattern to be applied in phase with the sum pattern. Thus it