Performance Analysis of Pulse Doppler Digital Radars with Application to the Shuttle Ku-Band System

The performance of a class of pulse Doppler radars with a digitally implemented signal processing unit is investigated. The band rendezvous radar onboard the Shuttle Orbiter is a pulse Doppler radar which is in this class. The detection capability is first presented. A unified analysis of digital radar tracking loops is presented which employs logarithmic discriminants. The results are applied to angle, range, and range rate tracking loops. Numerical results of the amplitude monopulse angle tracking loop are presented for the -band rendezvous radar of the Space Shuttle.