Fig. 2. Elevation pattern of direct wave.
Fig. 3. Beam patterns of antennas.
target and ¯
0
¼ ¯, (4) can be written as
F
i
(¯)=F(¯)
·
1 ¡ exp
μ
¡j
4¼
¸
H
i
sin¯
¶¸
= F(¯) ¢ 2sin
μ
2¼
¸
H
i
sin¯
¶
e
jÁ
i
(5)
jF
i
(¯)j = F(¯) ¢ 2
¯
¯
¯
¯
sin
μ
2¼
¸
H
i
sin¯
¶
¯
¯
¯
¯
(6)
where Á
i
= ¼=2 ¡ (2¼=¸)H
i
sin¯. We can find from (5)
and (6) the following.
1) When (2¼=¸)H
i
sin¯ = n¼ (n is an integer),
jF
i
(¯)j = 0, and the beam splits; when (2¼=¸)H
i
sin¯ =
((2n +1)=2)¼, F
i
(¯) reaches its maximum, and it
is obvious that F
i
(¯) is related to the height of the
antenna and the wavelength.
2) When the phase 2¼ ¢ H
i
sin¯=¸ is within the
range [2n¼,(2n +1)¼] or [(2n +1)¼,(2n +2)¼], which
means sin ¯ is within the range of (n¸=H
i
,(2n +1)¸=
2H
i
)or((2n +1)¸=2H
i
,(n +1)¸=H
i
), the phase of
F
i
(¯)isÁ
i
or ¼ + Á
i
respecti vely, which we call the
“180 deg out-of-phase” relationship between the
adjacent split beams. Such a relationship is shown
in Fig. 3, where the heights of the antennas are 4 m,
7 m, and 12 m, respectively. Here the symbols “+”
and “¡” are used to express the two phases which
have the out-of-phase relationship. It is obvious that
the wave crest and the wave trough of each beam have
been staggered.
III. METHOD FOR ALTITUDE MEASUREMENT BASED
ON BEAM SPLIT IN VHF RADAR
Assume that the height difference between
antennas is far smaller than the range resolution, the
baseband signal model for the combined direct and
reflected beam in the far field is
U
i
(¯) = [exp(¡jkR
0,i
)+¡ exp(¡jkR
1,i
)]F(¯)
¼ exp(¡jk¢ R) ¢ F(¯)[1 ¡ exp(¡j2k ¢ H
i
sin(¯))]
= F(¯) ¢ 2sin(k ¢ H
i
sin(¯))exp(jÁ
i
)(7)
where k =2¼=¸ is the wave number and
Á
i
=
¼
2
¡ k ¢ H
i
sin¯ ¡ k ¢ R: (8)
If 0 <k¢ H
i
sin¯<¼, i.e., 0 < sin ¯<¸=2H
i
,the
phase difference between two receiving antennas is
Á
1,2
= ©[U
1
(¯)] ¡ ©[U
2
(¯)] ¼ k(H
2
¡ H
1
)sin¯ (9)
where ©[x] denotes the phase of x.From(9)wesee
that the phase difference can be used to determine
ele vation ¯. But in the case of ¸ =1:7m,H
i
=12m,
and ¯<4 deg, it is difficult to measure the angle
directly because the elevation range is limited.
To measure the altitude of the target efficiently,
we should first estimate which split beam or altitude
range the target is in. From (7) and (8) we find that
the phase of the receiving antennas are Á
i
or ¼ + Á
i
,
so the phase difference Á
0
1,2
between two antennas is
Á
1,2
or §¼ + Á
1,2
.ThevariableÁ
0
1,2
is multivalued and
cannot be used to measure the elevation of the target
directly; however, we can determine the approximate
range that Á
0
1,2
is in. Then we can get
C
1,2
= sign[cos(Á
0
1,2
)] =
½
1, cos(Á
0
1,2
) ¸ 0
0, cos(Á
0
1,2
) < 0
:
(10)
Similarly, we can get the phase sign between
antennas (1,3) denoted as C
1,3
, and that between
antennas (2,3) as C
2,3
. The combination of C
1,2
, C
1,3
,
and C
2,3
can be regarded as an elevation code, denoted
as C
1,3
C
1,2
C
2,3
for example. When the heights of the
antennas are 4 m, 7 m, 12 m, respectively, and the
carrier frequency is 180 MHz, we can calculate the
elevation code using (5) and (10), and the results are
showninTableI.For¯>11:5deg,theelevation
code becomes multivalued, a case called “subarea
ambiguity.” We mainly discuss the measurement of
low altitude targets in this paper.
CHEN ET AL.: ALTITUDE MEASUREMENT BASED ON BEAM SPLIT AND FREQUENCY DIVERSITY IN VHF RADAR 5