Issues Critical to the Application of Adaptive Array Antennas to Missile Seekers.
Abstract
Missile seekers will confront complex and hostile signal environments that can inhibit severely their ability to intercept threatening targets. Dramatic target detection and homing performance improvement in main beam and sidelobe jamming is realizable with a seeker antenna that can optimally adapt, in real time, its response to the signal environment. Adaptive array antennas can be designed to optimize the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio by forming pattern nulls directed toward sources of interference while simultaneously maximizing gain in the desired signal direction. Physical and operational missile constraints place severe requirements on an adaptive array. Nevertheless, there are several array configurations and adaptive processors that can satisfy these constraints in the next decade. Technology is a dominant limitation to adaptive array performance in a missile seeker. Signal processors and array implementations using state-of-the-art technology are required. Critical experimentation and representative simulations are needed to establish error effects, preferred adaptive array implementations, detailed requirements, and relative cost estimates. Although an adaptive missile seeker antenna is physically realizable in the next decade, the tradeoffs between cost, complexity, and performance will determine its utility and practicality. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA133401
Entities
People
- C. H. Ronnenburg
- R. L. Trapp
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University