Transient Response of a Heterodyne Receiver: Implications for a Time-of-Arrival System.

Abstract

A directional antenna is a filter whose response varies with direction. A modulated signal transmitted from such an antenna produces different farfield waveforms in all directions (except for possible symmetry). The response of a receiver to the transmission will vary with position in the antenna pattern of the emitter. This effect is ordinarily negligible but it could limit the ultimate performance of any system that accepts off-axis signals and relies upon the details of waveform. In a leading-edge TOA system used to determine the location of a pulsed emitter, the several receivers necessarily lie at different angular positions from the emitter. This analysis indicates that in a simple, idealized TOA system that would otherwise be entirely free from error, the waveform effect arising from a directional emitter can lead to errors of several dozen meters in the computed location. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1979
Accession Number
ADA078373

Entities

People

  • Thomas Finley Burke

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Antennas
  • Bandpass Filters
  • Bandwidth
  • Circuit Analysis
  • Circuits
  • Computational Science
  • Computers
  • Differential Equations
  • Directional Antennas
  • Geometry
  • Measurement
  • Resonant Circuits
  • Resonant Frequency
  • Sine Waves
  • Tuned Circuits
  • Waveforms

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Radar Systems Engineering.