6 INTRODUCTION TO MONOPULSE

tude comparison unless special techniques are introduced for

storing and comparing phase information. The angle of arrival,

as obtained from the amplitude patterns in Fig. 1.1 by sequential

comparison, may be obtained equally well by simultaneous com-

parison. But angle of arrival may be obtained instead from a

phase-sensing antenna in the form of a radio interferometer whose

phase patterns are compared simultaneously. Under certain con-

ditions (Sec. 5.3) the phase patterns reduce to the patterns of a

pair of displaced phase centers whose phase difference is a

measure of angle of arrival. If the phase centers are spaced a

Source

Boresight

's sin 8

Fig. 1.3 Phase comparison by a radio interferometer.

distance s (Fig. 1.3), then the phase difference is related to angle

of arrival 6 by

<t> = -r- s sin 6.

(1.1)

It will be seen later in Chap. 5 that considerable flexibility of both

amplitude- and phase-sensing characteristics is possible by con-

trolling the aperture distribution of the antenna, although most

modern simultaneous-lobing techniques have been limited either

to the use of conventional radar beams squinted off of the bore-

sight or to the use of displaced-phase-center interferometers.

The advantages of simultaneous lobing are obtained only at the

expense of added complexity of the system. Instead of the usual

single-channel receiver consisting of a mixer, intermediate-fre-

quency (i-f) amplifier, and detector, it becomes necessary, for

continuous angle measurement, to use at least two channels (for

angle measurements of pulsed point sources a single channel may

sometimes be shared6). The angle information is obtained by

comparing the signals from each pair of channels. To ensure an

accurate and stable angle indication these channels may have

stringent dynamic requirements on amplitude or phase, or more

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generally on both amplitude and phase, since the comparison