Radar tracking system development

The Airborne Seeker Test Bed (ASTB) is an airborne sensor testing platform operated by the Tactical Defense Systems group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The Instrumentation Head (IH) is a primary sensor on the ASTB. It is a passive X-band radar receiver located on the nose of the plane. The IH serves as a truth sensor for other RF systems on the test bed and is controlled by an onboard tracking system, the Seeker Computer. The Seeker Computer processes IH data in real-time to track targets in Doppler, angle, and range. From these tracks it then produces angle-error feedback signals that command the IH gimbals, keeping targets centered along the antenna boresight. Over three years, a new Seeker Computer was built to replace an old system constrained by obsolete hardware. The redevelopment project was a team effort and this thesis presents a systems-level analysis of the design process, the new Seeker Computer system, and the related team and individual contributions to software and digital signal processing research that took place during development.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Chin, Yue Hann

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eliahu N. Niewood and David H. Staelin.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/30368

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/30368