MONOPULSE ANGLE ESTIMATION WITH CONSTRAINED ADAPTIVE BEAMFORMING USING SIMPLE MAINLOBE MAINTENANCE TECHNIQUE Sung-Hoon Moon , Dong-Seog

Han , Hae-Sock Oh , Myeong-Je Cho

School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Korea Agency for Defense Development, Korea
ABSTRACT tion, which do not require the monopulse ratio to be corrected. The system consists of an adaptive array and following mainlobe canceller. However, it is dicult to combine an adaptive array with a suitable mainlobe maintenance technique as accurate information is required from the mainlobe jammer (MLJ). Accordingly, the current paper presents a simple mainlobe maintenance technique. With a suitable sidelobe reduction, the incoming direction of the mainlobe jammer is estimated using the azimuth dierence, elevation dierence, and sum patterns, then a directional constraint is added to the conventional beamforming in the adaptive array. As a result, the sidelobe jammers are removed from the front adaptive array, then the remaining mainlobe jammer is removed from the following mainlobe canceller. The remainder of the current paper is as follows: The beamforming system proposed by Yu and Murrow is outlined in Section II. In Section III presents the proposed, a simple mainlobe maintenance technique that, which uses the estimated direction of the MLJ, is proposed. The performance of the proposed mainlobe maintenance system is analyzed in Section IV, and some concluding remarks are presented in Section V. II. ADAPTIVE BEAMFORMING FOR ANGLE ESTIMATION A. MONOPULSE BEAMFORMING NETWORK The monopulse technique is an angle estimation method that uses more than two antenna beam patterns where the beams are generated simultaneously, unlike classical tracking methods, such as sequential lobing or a conical scan [5]. As a result, the performance of monopulse tracking is far superior to the performance of classical methods. The problem with the monopulse technique caused by interference can be solved by adopting adaptive beamforming. Fig. 1 is a monopulse beamforming network, where the sum and dierent channels are used to calculate the monopulse ratio. For K antenna elements, the array input vector

A new monopulse radar system is proposed to overcome the diculties with conventional monopulse techniques under jamming conditions. The proposed system uses a simple mainlobe maintenance technique based on the estimated direction of the mainlobe jammer. Thereafter, an adaptive array is used to create pattern nulls in the incoming directions of jammers, while maintaining the shape of the mainlobe. As a result, the proposed system can track the target angle without any correction of the adaptive sum and dierence beam outputs. I. INTRODUCTION The monopulse technique, which is used to track the angular location of a radiation source, is widely employed in modern surveillance and tracking radars. However, under jamming conditions, this technique needs to be combined with adaptive arrays to obtain a correct monopulse ratio. Adaptive arrays are very eective in improving the signal to noise plus interference ratio under jamming conditions, thereby restoring a good detection performance. However, the main beam can be distorted when the jammer is close to the look direction of the tracking radar. This pattern distortion results in a large error in the monopulse angle estimation. To solve this pattern distortion problem, Davies, Brennan, and Reed [1] derived three dierent monopulse formulas for the maximum likelihood estimation in the case of a linear array. Nickel [2] also derived formulas for a rst-order Taylor expansion of the adapted monopulse characteristics, while Paine [3] developed an approach to solve the problem where the dierence beam weights are calculated via an optimization problem, which seeks target direction estimates using the least mean square error. However, these methods involve very complex calculations for the correction value. Yu and Murrow [4] proposed a digital beamforming system and processing algorithm for the angle estima-

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x1 x2
w

K/2

( ) =
u

j exp {j (k 1) }
k =1 K

(9)

xK f
-1

+
u Re u

(j ) exp{j (k 1) } exp j (K 1) 2

k =K/2+1

=
u
w

2 sin2 ( K 4 ) sin ( 2)

and
Fig. 1. Monopulse beamforming network.

f ( ) = tan

K 4

= tan

KD sin 2

(10)

is given by x = [x1 , x2 , , xK ]T . (1)

respectively. The target direction of arrival (DOA) can be estimated from the monopulse ratio in (10). B. MONOPULSE BEAMFORMING WITH JAMMING The monopulse technique is severely degraded by external interference. Thus adaptive beamforming is essential to obtain a correct target angle from the monopulse technique. However, adaptive beamforming distorts the beam pattern when removing the interference, thereby making it dicult to track the target using the monopulse technique. Yu and Murrow proposed a digital beamforming architecture that removes sidelobe jammers (SLJs) using an adaptive array, while reserving the shape of the mainlobe, plus the remaining MLJ is removed by the following mainlobe canceller. Fig. 2 shows the digital beamforming architecture proposed by Yu and Murrow. Assume that a planar array has N columns of elements, and each column has M elements. Fixed beamforming is used for each column and adaptive beamforming is only possible in the azimuth direction. After the xed beamforming for each column the column sum vector ue and column dierence vector ue are
Column Sum & Difference Beamforming Network

The input vector is combined to form the sum and difference outputs as
H x u = w

(2) (3)

and

H x u = w

respectively, where w is the sum beam weight vector and w is the dierence beam weight vector. The superscript H denotes a Hermitian transpose. The sum and dierence antenna beam patterns are expressed as H a( ) (4) ( ) = w and
H a( ), ( ) = w

(5)

where a( ) is the array steering vector in the incident direction . For a uniform linear array, the array steering vector can be expressed as a( ) = [1, exp {j }, , exp {j (K 1) }]T , where is an inter-element phase shift given by = 2 D sin (7) (6)

and D is the inter-element distance. Then the sum pattern, dierence pattern, and monopulse ratio can be expressed as ( ) = =
K k =1

Adaptive Array with MLM

Mainlobe Canceller

exp {j (k 1) } exp j (K 1) 2

(8)

Monopulse Angle Estimation

sin ( K 2 ) sin ( 2)

Fig. 2. Digital beamforming architecture proposed by Yu and Murrow

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u u u u w a1
A

u
E

fE
E

u u

E
E

w a2

u w e1 u w e2

mainlobe gain of the dierence channel is used to remove the MLJ in the sum channel. Applebaum, et al. proposed a mainlobe canceller to remove the MLJ while preserving the monopulse ratio. Fig. 3. shows a block diagram of the mainlobe canceller. The antenna beam patterns are separable in the azimuth and elevation directions as (a , e ) = (a )(e ) (19) A (a , e ) = (a )(e ) E (a , e ) = (a )(e ) (a , e ) = (a )(e ), (20) (21) (22)

fA 1
A

u u

A
A

Fig. 3. MLC for adaptive monopulse processing.

formed, as shown in Fig. 2. These vectors are then combined with the weight vectors for the adaptive array to remove the sidelobe jammers in the array sum u , delta-azimuth uA , delta-elevation uE , and deltadelta u channels. These channels can be expressed as H ue (11) u = w
H ue u A = w H ue u E = w H ue , u = w

where (a , e ), A (a , e ), E (a , e ), and (a , e ) are the array sum, delta-azimuth, delta-elevation, and delta-delta channel beam patterns, respectively, along the azimuth direction a and elevation direction e . With this property, the mainlobe canceller can remove the MLJ in one direction, while reserving the monopulse ratio in the other direction. The sum channel and dierence channel outputs in the elevation direction can be obtained as u E = u wa1 uA u E = u wa2 u , (23) (24)

(12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18)

where = w

1 R e w

1 = R w e w 1 = R w e w 1 = R w e w .

where wa1 and wa2 are the adaptive weights to minimize E , respectively. For a the output power of u E and u large jammer to noise ratio, wa1 and wa2 are almost the same. Then these weights are approximated as wa = wa1 = wa2 . (25)

Re and Re are the covariance matrix of the column sum vector ue and column dierence vector ue , respectively, and w and w are the nominal sum and dierence beforming weights, respectively. To prevent mainlobe distortion resulting from the adaptive beamforming, the front adaptive array needs to be combined with a suitable mainlobe maintenance technique, such as a structured covariance matrix using a subspace constraint, diagonal loading, modied dominant mode rejection, MLJ ltering, blocking matrix, or rank-1 MLJ down-dating [4]. As a result, although no SLJs remain in the output channels of the adaptive array, there is still an MLJ. Thus, to remove the MLJ, a mainlobe canceller follows the adaptive array. In the mainlobe canceller the high

Therefore, the adapted monopulse ratio along the elevation direction can be derived as f E = = = = (a , e ) (a , e ) E (a , e ) wa (a , e ) (a , e ) wa A (a , e ) (e ){(a ) wa (a )} (e ){(a ) wa (a )} (e ) . (e )

(26)

From (26), it is veried that the monopulse ratio along the elevation direction is maintained, while removing the MLJ through azimuth direction beamforming. Similarly, the adapted monopulse ratio along the azimuth

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direction can be derived as f A = = = = (e , a ) (e , a ) A (e , a ) we (e , a ) (e , a ) we E (e , a ) (a ){(e ) we (e )} (a ){(e ) we (e )} (a ) , (a )

u

Column Sum & Difference Beamforming Network

Adaptive Array with MLM

A

Fixed Azimuth Sum & Difference Beamforming

a a

u
aMLJ

Mainlobe Canceller

MLJ Azimuth Angle Estimation

Monopulse Angle Estimation

(27)
Fig. 4. Proposed monopulse beamforming network.

where we is the weight minimizing the output power of the sum channel and dierence channel outputs, u A and u A , respectively, in the azimuth direction. III. MONOPULSE BEAMFORMING NETWORK WITH SIMPLE MAINLOBE MAINTENANCE TECHNIQUE Practically, it is very dicult to combine an adaptive array with a suitable mainlobe maintenance technique when the mainlobe jamming is incoming. Moreover, conventional mainlobe maintenance techniques are very complex and not robust. For example, rank-1 MLJ down-dating subtracts the rank-1 contribution from the MLJ as R = R P1 j1 jH (28) 1 , where R is the array covariance matrix, P1 is the power of the MLJ, and j1 is the array response vector of the MLJ. In a modied covariance matrix R, although there is no contribution from the MLJ, it is still very difcult to estimate the power and location of the MLJ since much computation is required to analyze the covariance matrix with conventional algorithms, such as MUSIC and ESPRIT. More importantly even a small error in the MLJ information can result in a serious performance degradation. Accordingly, the current paper proposes a simple and robust mainlobe maintenance technique. Fig 4. presents the architecture of the proposed monopulse beamforming network. The column sum and dierence output vectors combined with the nominal sum and difference vectors, respectively, are expressed as
H ue a = w

smaller than the mainlobe gain, the eect of SLJs is signicantly much reduced in the xed azimuth beamforming network, as shown in Fig. 4. Thus, the azimuth angle of the MLJ can be estimated from the monopulse ratio of the xed azimuth beamforming network as
M LJ )= f (a

a . a

(31)

If the power of the SLJs is much higher than that of the MLJ, the estimated azimuth angle of the MLJ may be slightly dierent from the real value. Yet this dierence will not severely degrade the performance of the monopulse beamforming, since the mainlobe shape of the beam pattern is not freely changed near the estimated azimuth angle of the MLJ. The estimated azimuth angle of the MLJ can be applied to maintain the mainlobe of the beam patterns of the adaptive array. The multiple constrained minimum variance (MCMV) beamforming criteria are given by min wH Rw
w

subject to

wH Ac = cT ,

(32)

where c = [c1 , c2 ]T is the constraint vector, in which c1 is the desired gain for the tracking axis, c2 is the additional constraint value depending on the estimated angle of the MLJ, and Ac is the constraint matrix expressed as (33) Ac = a(s ) a(M LJ ) , where, a(s ) and a(M LJ ) are the array response vectors for the target and MLJ, respectively. Then the optimum weight vector is given by wopt = R1 Ac c . 1 AH c R Ac (34)

(29)

and

H ue , a = w

(30)

respectively. The nominal sum and dierence weight vectors are windowed to reduce the sidelobe level of each beam pattern. Since the sidelobe level is much

The operations of the following mainlobe canceller and target angle estimation are the same with those of the monopulse beamforming architecture presented in Section II.

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10 Row sum Row diff. DOAs 0

5 Monopulse ratio Output sum/diff. ratio DOA of MLJ

3
10

2
20

30

Monopulse ratio
80 60 40 20 0 Azimuth [deg] 20 40 60 80

Gain [dB]

40

2
50

3
60

4
70

0 Azimuth [deg]

Fig. 5. The xed azimuth sum and dierence beam patterns.

Fig. 6. MLJ azimuth angle estimation.

5 Monopulse ratio Output sum/diff. ratio Target DOA

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS The performance of the proposed monopulse beamforming network was is analyzed using a planar array with 15 columns of elements, where each column has 15 elements. The target is incoming from an azimuth and elevation angle of (0 , 0 ) with an SNR of 10 dB. Through the mainlobe the MLJ is incoming from an azimuth and elevation angle of (3 , 2 ) with a JNR of 20 dB. A sidelobe jammer is also incoming from an azimuth and elevation angle of (25 , 35 ) with a JNR of 40 dB. A Chebyshev window is applied to reduce the sidelobe level of the beam patterns and maintain the peak sidelobe level at 20 dB below the look direction gain. Fig. 5 shows the xed azimuth sum and dierence beam patterns used to estimate the azimuth direction for the MLJ, while Fig. 6 conrms that the azimuth angle of the MLJ is estimated with only a small error when using the simple xed azimuth monopulse beamforming. Figs. 7 and 8 show the estimated target direction as regards the azimuth and elevation direction, respectively. The estimated azimuth and elevation direction is (0.27 , 0.45 ). There is only a small bias in the estimated target direction despite the MLJ and SLJ. V. CONCLUSIONS A monopulse beamforming architecture with a simple and robust mainlobe maintenance technique is proposed. The proposed mainlobe maintenance technique does not require a complex analysis of a covariance matrix, such as MUSIC and ESPRIT. Furthermore, the proposed method can estimate the azimuth angle of the MLJ more quickly than any other conventional DOA estimation method used to maintain the mainlobe of an adaptive array.

Monopulse ratio

0 Azimuth [deg]

Fig. 7. Target azimuth angle estimation.

5 Monopulse ratio Output sum/diff. ratio Target DOA

Monopulse ratio

0 Elevation [deg]

Fig. 8. Target elevation angle estimation.

REFERENCES
[1] R. C. Davies, et al, Angle estimation with adaptive arrays in external noise eld, IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol. AES-12, no. 2, pp. 179-186, Mar. 1976. [2] U. Nickel, Monopule estimation with adaptive arrays, IEE Proc. Radar, Sonar Navig., vol. 140, no. 5, pp. 303-308, Oct. 1993. [3] A. S. Paine, Minimum variance monopulse technique for a adaptive phased array radar, IEE Proc. Radar, Sonar Navig., vol. 145, no. 6, pp. 374-380, Dec. 1998. [4] K. B. Yu and D. J. Murrow, Adaptive digital beamforming for angle estimation in jamming, IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 508-523, Apr. 2001.

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