DIRECTION OF ARRIVAL (DOA) DETERMINATION BASED ON MONOPULSE

CONCEPTS

Werner Kederer
Lehrstuhl für Hochfrequenztechnik, Technische Universität München
Arcisstraße 21, D-80333 München, Germany
E-mail: kederer@ei.tum.de

Jürgen Detlefsen
Lehrstuhl für Hochfrequenztechnik, Technische Universität München
Email: detlefsen@ei.tum.de

Monopulse is a classical radar technique [1] of precise direction finding of a source or target. The
concept can be used both in radar applications as well as in modern communication techniques.
The information contained in antenna sidelobes normally disturbs the determination of DOA in the
case of a classical monopulse system. The suitable combination of amplitude- and phase-mono-
pulse algorithm leads to the novel complex monopulse algorithm (CMP), which also can utilise
information from the sidelobes by using the phase shift of the signals in the sidelobes in relation to
the mainlobes.

1 Monopulse Principles

The general problem of determining the angle ϕ of arrival of an electromagnetic wave by monopulse
methods is characterized by fig. 1a, where two or in general n tilted beams with not necessarily equal
radiation patterns receive complex signals denoted by X1 to Xn. As the angular information is
independent of the transmitted or backscattered amplitude the amplitude can be removed from the
signals by having the signals normalized by Ni which is either by the magnitude of the sum of the
complex signals (N1) or the sum of the signal magnitudes (N2).
X1 Xi Xn N 1 =| X 1 + X 2 + ... + X i ... + X n |
x1 = ... xi = ... xn = with
N N N N 2 =| X 1 | + | X 2 | + | X i | ...+ | X n | (1)

The straight forward processing step is to determine a suitable function e0, which depends on the
measured complex normalized quantities xi which in turn are dependent on the angle of incidence ϕ.
Suitable evaluation functions ri are:

| x1 | evaluation of magnitude ratio Amplitude comparison monopulse (2a)

r1 =
| x2 |
r2 = ∠x1 − ∠x 2 evaluation of angular Phase Comparison Monopulse (2b)
difference
x1 evaluation of both magnitude Complex Monopulse, CMP (2c)
r3 = ratio and angular difference
x2
In special cases the direct determination of the angular information by identifying a suitable evaluation
function ri(x1, x2) = g(ϕ) which can be explicitly inverted, is possible, giving the possibility to directly
derive ϕ from the measurements. The general case is that the results of the evaluation function ri have
to be compared to a reference function e0(ϕ). It is obtained by evaluating one of the evaluation
functions ri(ϕ) for all anticipated angles ϕ by using prerecorded values xi0 of the beams directional
pattern and contains the expected values for every specific angular value of ϕ. This comparison can be
done for scalar quantities as well as for complex functions. In general as all measurement quantities
are subject to stochastic and deterministic errors a distance measure between r and e0(ϕ) has to be
applied in order to identify the angular value ϕ0 which gives a best fit between observed and measured
quantities. For this purpose all kinds of suitable measure L(e(ϕ),r) of distance can be used. The best
estimate ϕ0 for the angle of incidence is found by minimising this measure to ϕ0.

L(e0 (ϕ ), r ) =
ϕ →ϕ 0
Min with e0 (ϕ ) = r ( x10 (ϕ ), x 20 (ϕ ),..., x n 0 (ϕ )) (3)

Amplitude-Comparison Monopulse
The amplitude-comparison monopulse according to figure 1a is based on the fact that the two antenna
patterns are tilted but overlapping. This means that for every direction of arrival the difference of the
received signal amplitude will be a measure for angular displacement. On the other hand the phase
monopulse algorithm is based on separate antennas with boresight axes that are parallel to each other.
The angular information is obtained by comparing the phase difference of the received signals that are
due to the angular position of the scattering object assumed to be in the far-field region.

Amplitude comparison monopulse Phase comparison monopulse

Figure 1: Principle Set-up of Antennas for Monopulse evaluation

a) Amplitude Comparison monopulse b) Phase comparison monopulse
In the amplitude monopulse case the magnitude of the signals |x1| and |x2| obtained from the two
beams, can be used to gain the angular information ϕ which is contained in the ratio
| X 1 | | x1 |
r= = . (4)
| X 2 | | x2 |
The amplitude A of the incoming wave, which can vary e.g. due to the distance of the communication
partner or fluctuations of the target’s radar cross section, is not relevant for the angular information
and has no influence on the quotient. The precise value of the incident angle can be determined by
comparing the ratio r with a reference function e0(ϕ), which can be determined in advance based on
the known antenna pattern of the two antennas. In this case the equation (5)
| x10 (ϕ ) |
e0 (ϕ ) = = r (ϕ 0 ) . when ϕ → ϕ 0 (5)
| x 20 (ϕ ) |
has to be fulfilled resulting in the best estimate ϕ0 for the angle ϕ.This approach can be shown to be
equivalent to the estimation of the angle ϕ using the well-known nearly linear amplitude monopulse
“error”-signal [2]. The graph of the “error”-signal e0(ϕ) which represents the evaluating reference
function of two antenna patterns for the classical amplitude monopulse algorithm is shown in figure 2.

r (ϕ 0 ) =| x1 | − | x 2 | → | x10 (ϕ ) | − | x 20 (ϕ ) |= e0 (ϕ ) . when ϕ → ϕ 0 (6)

x1, x2 measured complex values of the two antenna beams, normalized by N2

r evaluation value that has to be compared with e0(ϕ)
e0(ϕ) reference function
xi0 prerecorded antenna pattern, normalized by N2
ϕ0 angle to be estimated.

Because of |e0(ϕ)|≤1, the reference function e0(ϕ) for determining the angle of arrival is limited in
magnitude and also incorporates no potential singularities in comparison to the use of the pure ratio of
the two antenna beams R(ϕ).
P attern of t wo antennas "E rror"-s ignal
1 1

0. 9 0. 8

0. 8 0. 6

0. 7 0. 4

0. 6 0. 2

0. 5 0

0. 4 -0.2

0. 3 -0.4

0. 2 -0.6

0. 1 -0.8

0 -1
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
angular deviat ion [° ] angular deviat ion [° ]

Figure 2: Dual-Antenna Pattern (left); “Error” Signal (right)

The described amplitude monopulse methods can be extended to antenna configurations of more than
two antennas. Using the classical monopulse methods, always pairs of two antennas have to be
evaluated. When the amplitude monopulse algorithm is used, the axes of the antenna beams have to be
tilted. In general, the pattern of beams that are not adjacent will not overlap. This means that in the
case of radar, angular resolution of more than one target in the same radial resolution cell is possible.
In the case of a single target the selection of the antenna pair relevant for the evaluation can be based
on the amplitudes of the measured signals in the various beams.

Phase-Comparison Monopulse
As mentioned above, another possibility to determine the angle of arrival is to evaluate the phase
difference between the two beams. The angle of arrival can be calculated by geometrical
considerations based on an incoming plane wavefront. Figure 3 shows the geometrical relations.

e
wav
ming
inco

Figure 3: Principle of phase-comparison monopulse algorithm

The angle of arrival can be determined using ∆α = ∠x1 − ∠x 2 .

λ ⋅ ∆α
ϕ 0 = arcsin , (7)
2π ⋅ ∆x
where ∆x is the geometrical distance between the two antennas, ∆α is the observed phase difference
between the incoming signals and λ represents wavelength. The information can be directly employed
in equation (7) to estimate the angle of incidence. We can establish that like in amplitude monopulse
where the information was hidden in the ratio of the magnitudes of the measured signals (equation
(2a)), the information lies in the angle of the complex ratio, which represents the phase difference ∆α
(equation (2b)) of the measured values of the antenna pair. This analogy leads to a general treatment of
the monopulse problem.

2 Complex Monopulse

In practice the realisation of pure amplitude- or phase-comparison monopulse systems is very difficult
if not impossible. But the systems are considered to be pure amplitude- or phase-comparison
monopulse systems [2] and the evaluation algorithms however are designed accordingly. So the
information that lies in the relative phase between two antennas of an amplitude-comparison system is
lost and vice versa the amplitude information of a phase-comparison system is given away. By
evaluating both phase and amplitude information in a complex quotient simultaneously, the
information can be saved.
This is accomplished by the novel complex monopulse (CMP) method, which solves the angular
evaluation problem for a combination of amplitude- and phase-comparison monopulse information. As
modern digital signal processing systems allow to process simultaneously phase and amplitude
information, the complex ratio function R(ϕ) as given by equation (8) is analyzed. The complex
reference function e(ϕ) becomes a trajectory in the complex plane with the parameter angular
deviation ϕ.
With
x1 x (ϕ )
r (ϕ 0 ) = → 10 = e(ϕ ) when ϕ → ϕ 0 (8)
x2 x 20 (ϕ )
the phase difference and the amplitude ratio of the two beams are completely employed, with the effect that also
sidelobe information can be used for unambiguous angular processing. The algorithm can be used both for a
single antenna pair as well as for an antenna array with squinted patterns and provides moreover the possibility
of handling more than one target when the squint angle of the outside array antennas is large enough.
Alternatively we could use
x1 − x 2
r= (9)
x1 + x 2
and accordingly

x10 (ϕ ) − x 20 (ϕ )
e(ϕ ) = (10)
x10 (ϕ ) + x 20 (ϕ )
to avoid singularities in the interesting evaluation domain.

3 Conclusion

In this article classical methods of monopulse [1,2] and amplitude matching algorithm [3] have been
discussed. The classical monopulse concepts are extended to a general complex monopulse concept
(CMP). This concept offers like the amplitude-comparison monopulse algorithm multibeam capability
and the potential to handle multitarget situations in the case that angular deviation of the two targets is
sufficient. The algorithm can be easily implemented in digital signal processing systems. The CMP
algorithm promises in comparison to the other discussed monopulse concepts advantages due to its
capability to evaluate and process robustly information not only received by the main lobes but also
those received by the sidelobes. This assumes that sufficient SNR can be provided. In contrast to this,
when using classical monopulse processing the sidelobe-information could severely deteriorate the
results of the evaluation algorithm. Simulation results confirm the advantages of the CMP-algorithm.

References

[1] Donald R. Rhodes, Introduction to Monopulse, Mc Graw Hill; New York,

Toronto, London, 1959
[2] S.M. Sherman, Monopulse Principles and techniques, Artech House, Dedham, 1984