MODULE 4

TRACKING RADAR
 Tracking with Radar
Sequential Lobing
Conical Scan
Monopulse Tracking Radar
Amplitude Comparison Monopulse (One and two coordinate)
Phase Comparison Monopulse
Tracking in Range
Acquisition and Scanning Patterns
Comparison of Trackers
Tracking With Radar

• Tracking is the process of continuously maintaining the antenna beam on the target
and also the echo signal within the range gate.
• The radar which detects target and determines location as well as predict its
trajectory path as well as its future coordinates is known as tracking radar.
• Based on the measured coordinates error signal will be generated.
• Antenna should be moved based on error signal to maintain the target within the
beam.
• Use pencil beam
• The figure below mentions block diagram of simple tracking radar.
• As shown tracking operation in the radar depends upon angular information. very
narrow antenna beam is used here which will track one target object at one time.
This can be performed using range gating and doppler filtering module.
• Range tracking is carried out using timing control unit. Doppler tracking is carried
out using Doppler gating unit.

• The angle error signal is provided as input for servo motor based control system. This
servo system will steer the antenna as per error input and hence will track the target.
• The various methods for generating the error signal are classified as sequential
lobing, conical scan, and simultaneous lobing or Monopulse.
• The data available from a tracking radar may be presented on a cathode-ray-tube
(CRT) display
 Tracking Radar Types

Following are the types of tracking radar:

• STT Radar (Single Target Tracking Radar)
• ADT Radar (Automatic Detection and Tracking Radar)
• TWS Radar (Track While Scan Radar)
• Phased Array Tracking Radar
• Monopulse Tracking Radar

STT Radar (Single Target Tracking Radar)

• Tracks a single target at fast data

• High Data rate – 10 obs/sec.
• Employs a closed loop servo system to keep the error signal small.
• Application – tracking of aircraft/missile targets

ADT Radar (Automatic Detection and Tracking Radar)

• This Tracking is preferred in air surveillance tracking radar.
• Lower data rate than STT.

• Can track hundreds/ a few thousand targets simultaneously.

• Tracking is open loop i.e antenna position is not controlled by data processing.

TWS Radar (Track While Scan Radar)

• This rapidly scans a limited angular sector to maintain tracks with a moderate data
rate on more than one target within the coverage of antenna (another name for
ADT).
• Scans a limited angular sector to maintain tracks – simultaneous track & search
• Data rate : moderate
• Can track a number of targets.
• Equivalent of track while scan is ADT
• TWS systems are used for air-defense radars, air craft landing radars and in air
borne intercept radars to track multiple objects
 Phased Array Tracking Radar
• A large number of targets can be held in track

• This is done on time sharing basis

• Beam is electronically switched from one angular position to another in a few

microseconds.

• It combines the rapid update rate of a single target tracker with the ability of ADT
to hold many targets in track

• High data rate (like in STT)

• The cost is very very high.

• These radars are used in air defense weapon systems.

Angle Tracking

• When a target is approaching, the antenna is to be moved continuously to track the

target
• To determine the direction in which the antenna beam needs to be moved, a
measurement has to be made at two different beam positions.
• Below figure shows the basic principle of continuous angle tracking
• Two overlapping antenna patterns that crossover at the boresight direction

• A target is located in this example to the right of the boresight at an angle

• The amplitude of the target echo in beam B is larger than the amplitude in
the beam A

• Which indicates that the two beams should moved to the right to bring the target to
the boresight position.

• If you want to track the target the boresight is always maintained in the direction of
the target.

Methods to extract error signal may be classified as

• Sequential lobing 1. Time shares a single beam
• Conical scan 2. Antenna beam is switched between two positions

• Simultaneous lobing or monopulse

1. More than one simultaneous beam is used

for tracking
2. Usually 4 simultaneous beams used for 2-
dimensional tracking

Single beam on time sharing basis. Multiple beam.

Sequential lobing Radar and Conical scan Simultaneous lobing or monopulse Radar]
Radar

Simpler Complex

One antenna Multiple antennas

Less equipment More equipments

Not accurate Accurate

No of pulses are required to extract the Single pulse is used to determine the
error signal angular error.
 Sequential Lobing
• The antenna pattern commonly employed with tracking radars is the symmetrical
pencil beam in which the, elevation and azimuth beam widths are approximately
equal.

• Actually the difference between the target position and the reference direction is
the angular error.

• The tracking radar attempts to position the antenna to make the angular error zero.
When the angular error is zero, the target is located along the reference direction.

• One method of obtaining the direction and the magnitude of the angular error in one
coordinate is switching the single antenna beam between two squinted angular
positions. This is called as lobe switching, sequential switching or sequential
lobing.

• The error signal is obtained from a target not on the switching axis.

• The direction in which to move the beam to bring the target on boresight is found
by observing which beam position has the larger signal.
 Fig 1-a is a polar representation of the antenna beam (minus the side lobes) in the two switched
positions. A plot in rectangular coordinates is shown in Fig.1-b, and the error signal obtained
from a target not on the switching axis (reference direction) is shown in Fig.1-c.

• When the echo signals in the two beam positions are equal, the target is n axis and
its direction is that of the switching axis.

• If orthogonal angle information is needed, two more switching positions are

needed.

• So, two dimensional sequentially lobing radar might consists of four feed horns
illuminating a single reflector antenna.

• An improvement over this can be a single squinted feed which could be rotated
continuously to obtain angle measurements in two coordinates . This results in
conical scan.

• One of the limitations of a simple unswitched non-scanning pencil-beam antenna is

that the angle accuracy can be no better than the size of the antenna beam width.

• An important feature of sequential lobing (as well as the other tracking techniques
to be discussed) is that the target-position accuracy can be far better than that given
by the antenna beam width.
Conical Scan

• The angle between the axis of rotation and the axis of the antenna beam is called the
Squint Angle.

• Consider a target at position A.

• The echo signal amplitude will be modulated at a frequency equal to the rotation
frequency of the beam.

• The amplitude of the echo signal modulation will depend upon the shape of the antenna
pattern, the squint angle and the angle between the target line of sight & the rotation
axis. This amplitude of the echo signal will be modulated ata frequency equal to the
beam rotation frequency (conical Scan frequency).

• The phase of the modulation depends on the angle between the target and the rotation
axis.

• The conical scan modulation is extracted from the echo signal and applied to a servo- control
system which continually positions the antenna rotation axis in the direction of the target.
[Note that two servos are required because the tracking is required in two- dimensions.

• When the antenna is on target, as in B of Fig. 2, the line of sight to the target and the
rotation axis coincide, and the conical-scan modulation is zero.

• Two servo motors are required, one for azimuth and the other for elevation
Block diagram of conical scan tracking radar

• The antenna is mounted so that it can be positioned in both azimuth and elevation
by separate m
• Redirection of beam i) Rotating feed ii) Nutating feed.
• When the feed is designed to maintain the plane of polarization as it rotates about
the axis, it is called ‘ nutating feed’.
• A rotating feed is one which causes the plane of polarization to rotate.
• The nutating feed is preferred over the rotating feed since a rotating polarization can
cause the amplitude of the target echo signal to change with time even for a
stationary target on axis.
• A change in amplitude caused by a modulated echo signal can result in degraded
angle tracking accuracy.
• The nutating feed is more complicated than the rotating feed.
• A typical conical scan rotation speed might be in the vicinity of 30 rev/sec.
• The same motor that provides the conical-scan rotation of the antenna beam also
drives a two-phase reference generator with two sinusoidal outputs 900 apart in
phase.
 • These two outputs serve as a reference to extract the elevation and azimuth errors.
• The received echo signal is fed to the receiver from the antenna via two rotary
joints (not shown in the block diagram). One rotary joint permits motion in
azimuth; the other, in elevation.
• The receiver is conventional super heterodyne except for features related to the
conical scan tracking.
• The error signal is extracted in the video after the second detector.
• Range gating eliminates noise and excludes other targets.
• The error signal from the range gate is compared with both the elevation and
azimuth reference signals in the angle error detectors.
• The angle error outputs are amplified and used to drive the antenna elevation and
azimuth servo motors.
• The video signal is a pulse train modulated by the conical scan frequency.
• It is usually convenient to stretch the pulses before low pass filtering so as to
increase the energy at the conical scan frequency to perform A/D conversion.
• This pulse stretching is accomplished by a sample-and hold circuit which also
known as boxcar generator.

Fig 4: (a) Pulse train with conical scan modulation (b)same pulse train after passing through
boxcar generator.(stretching by a sample and hold circuit)

• PRF must be sufficiently large compared to conical scan frequency for proper
filtering and avoiding inaccuracy of the angle measurement.
• The PRF must be atleast four times of conical scan frequency but normally 10
times.
Automatic Gain Control (AGC) :

• The echo-signal amplitude at the tracking-radar receiver will not be constant but
will vary with time. The three major causes of variation in amplitude are:
– The inverse-fourth-power relationship between the echo signal and range
– The conical scan modulation (angle-error signal) and
– Amplitude fluctuations in the target cross Section.
• The function of the automatic gain control (AGC) is to maintain the d-c level of the
receiver output constant and to smooth or eliminate as much of the noise like
amplitude fluctuations as possible without disturbing the extraction of the desired
error signal at the conical-scan frequency.
• AGC is also important for avoiding saturation by large signals which could cause
the loss of the scanning modulation and the accompanying error signal.
An example of the AGC portion of a tracking-radar receiver is shown in Fig
• A portion of the video-amplifier output is passed through a low-pass or smoothing
filter and fed back to control the gain of the IF amplifier.
• The larger the video output, the larger will be the feedback signal and the greater
will be the gain reduction.

Figure: Block diagram of the AGC portion of a tracking-radar receiver

• The filter in the AGC loop should pass all frequencies from direct current to just below
the conical-scan-modulation frequency.
• The loop gain of the AGC filter measured at the conical-scan frequency should be low
so that the error signal will not be affected by AGC action.
• The phase shift of this filter must be small if its phase characteristic is not to influence
the error signal.
• A phase change of the error signal is equivalent to a rotation of the reference axes and
introduces cross coupling, or "cross talk," between the elevation and azimuth angle-
tracking loops.
 • Cross talk affects the stability of the tracking and might result in an unwanted
nutating motion of the antenna.

• In conventional tracking radar applications, the phase change introduced by the

feedback-loop filter should be less than 100 and in some applications, it should be as
little as 20.

• For this reason, a filter with a sharp attenuation characteristic in the vicinity of the
conical-scan frequency might not be desirable because of the relatively large
amount of phase shift which it would introduce.

Other considerations:
• In both the sequential-lobing and conical-scan techniques, the measurement of the
angle error in two orthogonal coordinates (azimuth and elevation) requires that a
minimum of three pulses be processed.
• In practice, however, the minimum number of pulses in sequential lobing is usually
four-one per quadrant. Although a conical scan radar can also be operated with only
four pulses per revolution, it is more usual to have ten or more per revolution. This
allows the modulation due to the angle error to be more that of a continuous sine
wave.
• Thus, the PRF is usually at least an order of magnitude greater than the conical-
scan frequency.
• The scan frequency also must be at least an order of magnitude greater than the
tracking bandwidth.
• A conical-scan-on-receive-only (COSRO) tracking radar radiates a non-scanning
transmit beam, but receives with a conical scanning beam to extract the angle error.
The analogous operation with sequential lobing is called lobe-on-receive-only
(LORO).
 DISADVANTAGES

Sequential lobing
• Angle accuracy can be no better than the size of the antenna beamwidth.
• Variation in echo strength on a pulse-by-pulse basis changes the signal level thereby
reducing tracking accuracy
• The antenna gain is less than the peak gain in beam axis direction, reducing
maximum range that can be measured
Conical scan
• The antenna scan rate is limited by the scanning mechanism (mechanical or
electronic)
• Sensitive to target modulation
• Mechanical vibration and wear and tear due to rotating feed
• It creates confusion by rapid changes in signal strength

MONOPULSE TRACKING RADAR

• Pulse-to-pulse amplitude fluctuations of the echo signal have no effect on tracking
accuracy if the angular measurement is made on the basis of one pulse rather than
many.
• There are several methods by which angle-error information might be obtained with
only a single pulse.
• More than one antenna beam is used simultaneously in these methods, in contrast to
the conical-scan or lobe-switching tracker, which utilizes one antenna beam on a
time-shared basis.
• The angle of arrival of the echo signal may be determined in a single-pulse system
by measuring the relative phase or the relative amplitude of the echo pulse received
in each beam.
• The names simultaneous lobing and monopulse are used to describe those tracking
techniques which derive angle-error information on the basis of a single pulse.
• Most popular monopulse is – Amplitude Comparison Monopulse
Amplitude Comparison Monopulse

Figure: Monopulse antenna patterns and error signal. Left-hand diagrams in (a-c)
are in polar coordinates. Right-hand diagrams are in rectangular coordinates. (a)
Overlapping antenna patterns (b) sum pattern (c) difference pattern (d) product
(error) signal.

• In this technique, the RF signals received from two offset antenna beams are
combined so that both the sum and the difference signals are obtained
simultaneously.
• The sum and difference signals are multiplied in a phase-sensitive detector to
obtain both the magnitude and the direction of the error signal.
• All the information necessary to determine the angular error is obtained on the basis
of a single pulse; hence the name monopulse.
• The amplitude-comparison monopulse employs two overlapping antenna patterns
to obtain the angular error in one coordinate.
• The sum of the two antenna patterns of Fig (a) is shown in Fig (b), and the
difference in Fig(c).
• The sum pattern is used for transmission, while both the sum pattern and the
difference pattern are used on reception.
• The signal received with the difference pattern provides the magnitude of the angle
error.
• The sum signal provides the range measurement and is also used as a reference to
extract the sign of the error signal.
• Signals received from the sum and the difference patterns are amplified separately
and combined in a phase-sensitive detector to produce the error-signal characteristic
shown in Fig (d).
 Phase-sensitive detector
• The system contains a phase sensitive detector that compares two signals of
the same frequency.
• It is a nonlinear device
• The output indicates the direction of the angle error relative to the
boresight.
• Though phase comparison is done, the magnitude of the angle error signal
is determined by comparison of amplitude signals.

Amplitude-comparison monopulse (One angular coordinate )

• A block diagram of the amplitude-comparison-monopulse tracking radar for a
single angular coordinate is shown in below Fig.

Hybrid junctions
 • The two adjacent antenna feeds are connected to the two arms of a hybrid junction
such as a "magic T, a "rat race," or a “short-slot coupler”.

• The sum and difference signals appear at the two other arms of the hybrid. On
reception, the outputs of the sum arm and the difference arm are each heterodyned
to an intermediate frequency and amplified as, in any super heterodyne receiver.

• The transmitter is connected to the sum arm. Range information is also extracted from
the sum channel.

• A duplexer is included in the sum arm for the protection of the receiver.

• The output of the phase-sensitive detector is an error signal whose magnitude is

proportional to the angular error and whose sign is proportional to the direction.

• The output of the monopulse radar is used to perform automatic tracking.

• The angular error signal actuates a servo-control system to position the antenna, and
the range output from the sum channel feeds into an automatic-range-tracking unit.

• The sign of the difference signal (and the direction of the angular error) is determined
by comparing the phase of the difference signal with the phase of the sum signal.

• If the sum signal in the IF portion of the receiver were AS cos (ωIFt) the difference
signal would be either Ad cos (ωIFt) or– Ad cos (ωIFt) (As>0, Ad>O), depending on
which side of center is the target.

• Since – Ad cos (ωIFt) = Ad cos ωIF(t+π), the sign of the difference signal may be
measured by determining whether the difference signal is in phase with the sum or
1800 out of phase.

• The purpose of the phase-sensitive detector is only to conveniently furnish the sign
of the error signal.
Amplitude-comparison monopulse

(Two angular Coordinate )

• A block diagram of a monopulse radar with provision for extracting error signals in
both elevation and azimuth is shown in above Fig
• The cluster of four feeds generates four partial overlapping antenna beams. The feeds
might be used with a parabolic reflector, Cassegrain antenna, or a lens.
• All four feeds generate the sum pattern. The difference pattern in one plane is formed
by taking the sum of two adjacent feeds and subtracting this from the sum of the other
two adjacent feeds.
• The difference pattern in the orthogonal plane is obtained by adding the differences
of the orthogonal adjacent pairs.
• A total of four hybrid junctions generate the sum channel, the azimuth difference
channel, and the elevation difference channel.
• Three separate mixers and IF amplifiers are shown, one for each channel.
• All three mixers operate from a single local oscillator in order to maintain the phase
relationships between the three channels.
• Two phase-sensitive detectors extract the angle-error information, one for azimuth,
the other for elevation.
• Range information is extracted from the output of the sum channel after amplitude
detection.
 • An alternative approach to using three identical amplifiers in the monopulse receiver
is to use only one IF channel which amplifies the sum signal and the two difference
signals on a time-shared basis.

• The sum signal is passed through the single IF amplifier followed by the two
difference signals delayed in time by a suitable amount.

• Automatic gain control (AGC) is required in order to maintain a stable closed-loop

servo system for angle tracking and to insure that angle error signal is not affected by
changes in the received signal amplitude.

• The AGC results in a constant angle sensitivity independent of target size and
range.

• With AGC the output of the angle-error detector is proportional to the difference
signal normalized (divided) by the sum signal. The output of the sum channel is
constant.

[SUM PATTERN : A+B +C +D

AZIMUTH DIFF. PATTERN : (A+B) – (C +D)
ELEVATION DIFF. PATTERN : (B+D) – (A+C)]

Important Requirements of Amplitude-comparison monopulse

• The monopulse antenna must generate a sum pattern with high efficiency (maximum
boresight gain), and a difference pattern with a large value of slope at the crossover
of the offset beams.

• The greater the signal-to-noise ratio and the steeper the slope of the error signal
in the vicinity of zero angular error, the more accurate is the measurement of
angle.

• Furthermore, the side lobes of both the sum and the difference patterns must be low.

• The antenna must be capable of the desired bandwidth, and the patterns must have
the desired polarization characteristics.
Phase comparison Monopulse

• The tracking techniques discussed thus far in this chapter are based on the
comparison of the amplitude of echo signals received from two or more antenna
positions.
• The sequential-lobing and conical-scan techniques used a single, time-shared antenna
beam while the Monopulse technique used two or more simultaneous beams.
• The difference in amplitudes in the several antenna positions is proportional to the
angular error.
• A tracking radar which operates with phase information is similar to an active
interferometer and is also called interferometer radar. It has also been called
simultaneous phase comparison radar or phase-comparison Monopulse.
• Phase comparison monopulse uses two antenna beams to obtain an angle
measurement in one coordinate. But the two beams cover the same region of space.
• Here the two beams look in the same direction whereas in earlier case they looked
at slightly different directions

Wave front phase relationships in

phase comparison Monopulse
Radar
• In above Fig two antennas are shown separated by a distance d.
• The distance to the target is R and is assumed large compared with the antenna
separation d.
• The line of sight to the target makes an angle θ to the perpendicular bisector of the
line joining the two antennas.
• The distance from antenna 1 to the target is:
R1 = R + (d/2 ) sin θ
and the distance from antenna 2 to the target is:
R2 = R - (d/2 ) sin θ
• The phase difference between the echo signals in the two antennas is
approximately:
ΔØ = (2π/λ) .d. Sin θ

For small angles where sin θ ≈ θ, the phase difference is a linear function of the
angular error and may be used to position the antenna via a servo-control loop.

Block diagram of a phase comparison monopulse radar (one angle coordinate).

Limitations
•.Effect of grating lobes due to wide separation between the antennas
•Ambiguities in the angle measurement
•To overcome these problems, a portion of the parabolic reflectors is sliced off to
achieve this.
 Important points to remember in amplitude and phase comparison monopulse

• A total of four hybrid junctions generate sum, azimuth and elevation difference
channel
• Range information is extracted form the output of the sum channel after amplitude
detection
• The angular error signal is obtained by comparing echo amplitudes which actuates a
servo mechanism to position the antenna.
• The angle of arrival is determined by comparing the phase difference between
signals from two separate antennas
• Antennas of phase comparison are not offset from the axis

Limitations to Tracking Accuracy

Major effects that determine the accuracy of a tracking radar:

• Glint or angle noise or angular scintillation: which affects all tracking radars
especially at short range. The greater the target in angle, the greater is the glint error.
• Receiver noise: affects all radars and mainly determines tracking accuracy at long
range.
• RCS or Amplitude fluctuations of the target echo that bother conical scan and
sequential lobing trackers but not monopulse.
• Servo noise
• Antenna Beamwidth
• Atmospheric effects
Tracking in range
• In the early days o radar, tracking of target in range was usually done manually by
an operator who watched an A-scope or similar presentation and positioned a
handwheel to maintain a marker on the display over desired target pip.
• The setting of the handwheel was a measure of the target range and was converted
to an electrical signal and supplied to a data processor.
• Manually tracking has many limitations and it cannot be used in systems such as
missiles where there is no operator present.
• It was soon replaced by closed loop automatic tracking, such as split gate tracker.
• Split gate tracker uses two split range gates called early gate and late gate.
• The echo pulse is shown in Fig.a, the relative position of the gates at a particular
instant shown in Fig.b, and the error signal shown in Fig c.
• The portion of the signal energy contained in the early gate is less than that in the
late gate.
• If the outputs of the two gates are subtracted, an error signal shown in fig c will
result which is used to reposition the center of the gates.

Figure : Split-range-gate tracking.(a)Echo pulse (b)early-late range gates(c) difference signal

between early and late range gates
 • The magnitude of the error signal is a measure of the difference between the center
of the pulse and the center of the gates.
• The sign of the error signal determines the direction in which the gates must be
repositioned by a feedback-control system.
• When the error signal is zero the range gates are centered on the pulse.
• The range gating necessary to perform automatic tracking in Range offers several
advantages as by products.
• It isolates one target, excluding targets at other ranges. This permits the boxcar
generator to be employed.
• Also, range gating improves the signal-to-noise ratio since it eliminates the noise
from the other range intervals. Hence the width of the gate should be sufficiently
narrow to minimize extraneous noise.
• A reasonable compromise is to make the gate width two to five times of the pulse
width.

Acquisition and Scanning Patterns

• A tracking radar must first find and acquire its target before it can operate as a
tracker.

• Most tracking radars employ a narrow pencil beam for accurate tracking in angle;
but it can be difficult to search a large volume targets when using a narrow antenna
beamwidth.

• Search must be done with care to cover the entire volume uniformly and efficiently.

• Some other radar, therefore must first find the target to be tracked and then
designated the target’s coordinates to the tracker. These radars have been called
acquisition radars or designation radars that search a large volume.

Types of Scanning Patterns

The purpose of using scanning antenna is to find the direction of the target
with respect to the transmitter. The direction of the antenna at the instance when
echo is received, gives the direction of location of the target.
 Examples of acquisition search patterns: (a) Trace of helical scanning beam (b) Palmer scan
(c) spiral scan( d) raster, or TV, scan (e) nodding scan. The raster scan is sometimes called an
n-bar scan, where n is the number of horizontal rows.

a) Helical Scanning
• Helical scanning covers a hemisphere.

• In the helical scan, the antenna is continuously rotated in azimuth while it is

simultaneously raised or lowered in elevation.

• It’s typical speed of rotation is 6rpm along with a rise of 20% and was utilized in
world war II for anti-aircraft gun batteries as fire controlled radar.

b) Palmer Scan
• The Palmer scan consists of a rapid circular scan (conical scan) about the axis of
the antenna, combined with a linear movement of the axis of rotation.

• When the axis of rotation is held stationary the Palmer scan reduces to the conical
scan.

• Because of this feature the palmer scan is used with conical scan tracking radars
which must operate in both search and track mode.
c) Spiral Scan
• The spiral scan covers an angular search volume with circular symmetry.
• Both the spiral scan and the Palmer scan suffer from the disadvantage that all parts
of the scan volume do not receive the same energy unless the scanning speed is varied
during the scan cycle.
• As a consequence, the number of hits returned from a target when searching with a
constant scanning rate depends upon the position of the target within the search
area.
d) Raster Scan
• The raster or TV, scan, unlike the Palmer or the spiral scan, scans the search area in
a uniform manner.
• The raster scan is a simple and convenient means for searching a limited sector,
rectangular in shape.
e) Nodding Scan
• The antenna is moved rapidly in elevation while it rotates slowly in azimuth thus
scanning in both planes.
• The pattern covers the complete hemisphere i.e. elevation angle extending to
900and the azimuth scan angle to 3600
• Used in height finding radars

Comparison of Trackers

• Of the four continuous-tracking-radar techniques that have been discussed

(sequential lobing, conical scan, amplitude-comparison monopulse, and phase-
comparison monopulse), conical scan and amplitude-comparison monopulse have
seen more application than the other two.
• In phase comparison four antennas are placed in awkward direction and its side lobe
levels are higher than desired.
• Sequential lobing suffers more losses with complex antenna and feed system
• Amplitude comparison has high SNR
• It has higher precision in target tracking due to the absence of target amplitude
fluctuations
• Angle error in two coordinates can be obtained by a single pulse
• Conical scan integrates no of pulses and then extracts angle measurement but vice
versa in monopulse.
SNR
• The SNR from a monopulse radar is greater than that from a conical scan since it
views target at the peak of sum pattern.
• SNR is 2 to 4 db greater.
Accuracy
• Due to high SNR, the range accuracy is also high in monopulse.
• The accuracy is not affected by fluctuations in the amplitude of the echo signal.
• Both systems are degraded by the wandering of the apparent position of the a target
caused by glint.
Complexity
• Monopulse is more complex of the two.
• Conical scan has to rotate or nutate the beam at high speed.
• The cassegrain is a popular choice for monopulse
• A space fed phased array can implement monopulse by using a multiple feed
similar to cassegrain.

Min No. of Pulses

• A monopulse can perform on the basis of a single pulse. For a phased array one
pulse is sufficient
• The conical scan tracker requires a minimum no. of four pulses per revolution of
beam to extract an angle measurement in two coordinates.
• The monopulse first makes its angle measurement and then integrates a no. of
measurements to obtain the required SNR.
• The conical scan integrates a no. of pulses first and then extracts the angle
measurement.
Susceptibility to ECM
• Conical scan tracker is more vulnerable to spoofing that takes advantage of its
conical scan frequency
• It can also suffer from deliberate amplitude fluctuations.
• A well designed monopulse is hard to deceive.
Application
• Monopulse trackers should be used when good angle accuracy is needed.
• When high performance tracking is not necessary, the conical scan tracker might be
used for its low cost.
 Comparison of Monopulse Tracking and Conical Scan Tracking

Monopulse Tracking Conical Scan Tracking

Multiple beams are used to determine the A single antenna beam on a time shared
angle of arrival of the echo signal basis is used
Signle pulse is required to derive angle Multiple pulses are required
error information
High SNR Low SNR

More acuurate tracking Less accurate tracking

Complex Design Simple Design

Cassegrain antenna is used Horn antenna is used

High cost Low cost

The Search radar is usually less precise and only distinguishes between
targets that are hundreds of yards or even miles apart. Radar resolution is usually
divided into two categories viz. range resolution and angular resolution (i.e. bearing
resolution).
• Distance coverage: Long, medium, short ranges (20 km to 2000 km)
• High power density on the target: high peak power, long pulses, long pulse trains,
high antenna gain
• Low PRFs
Search options: rapid search rate with narrow beams or slower search rate
with wide beams
Tracking Radar
The Tracking radar continuously emits the EM waves in the air and detects the
targetted object when it comes in the path of the waves.
• Accurate angle and range measurement required

Minimize time on target for rapid processing

Special tracking techniques: monopulse, conical scan, beam switching