Performance Comparison of Federal Aviation Administration Radars Against Multiple Aircraft Types is a Naval Postgraduate School thesis by Benjamin A. Brannum.

Ensuring the safety and success of the global aviation industry requires the effective detection and tracking of aircraft and weather patterns, a task of paramount importance for both the United States and international aviation. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) relies on four distinct rotating radar systems—Air Surveillance Radar 9 (ASR-9), Air Surveillance Radar 11 (ASR-11), Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR), and Air Route Surveillance Radar (ARSR-4)—to uphold situational awareness in the skies.

This study explores enhancing these radar systems’ capabilities by enabling coherent processing of the maximum number of returned pulses within the antenna beamwidth. The analysis is executed by developing a Matrix Laboratory (Matlab) code set, providing a comprehensive platform for comparison. The research scrutinizes each radar’s target detection proficiency across parametric studies, including signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), target radar cross-section (RCS), and Doppler frequency. Output results encompass two-dimensional beam comparisons for each radar for targets of varying sizes.

The analysis includes multiple aspects such as aircraft SNR versus range, range versus RCS, beam comparisons, and Doppler frequency evaluations, examining single-pulse transmission and the maximum possible number of pulses within the antenna beamwidth. This research contributes valuable insights into optimizing radar capabilities for improved detection and tracking in aviation scenarios.

Publication Date– September 2023

Performance Comparison of Federal Aviation Administration Radars Against Multiple Aircraft Types contains the following major sections:

  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Performance Comparison and Analysis Setup
  • Analysis and Results
  • Conclusion

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Author- Benjamin A. Brannum

See Also-

Passive Radar for Counter-Drone Operations and Air Traffic Surveillance

Post Image- Radar equipment at the airport in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. (Post Image Credit: envatoelements by wirestock)