Signal Processing Application for Artillery Measurements using Fixed Head Doppler Radar

Abstract

This paper deals with signal processing application for muzzle velocity (MV) and all-burnt point (ABP) computation using Fixed Head Doppler Radar (FHDR). Radar signal processing software for MV measurement application has been developed using C++. The software can be used to compute radial velocity profile of the projectile. It involves computation of spectrogram which represents the peaks generated by the target velocity with respect to time. The spectrogram peaks represent the estimated signal to noise ratio (SNR). Tracks representing peaks generated by the target for consecutive time values, with a systematic change in velocity are initiated. These tracks can be manually selected and edited as required. A polynomial or spline model is then fitted to the final track for estimation of MV or ABP. The obtained curve can be further differentiated or integrated for obtaining slant range versus time and acceleration versus time graphs for the analysis of projectile motion.