Direction Finding and Tracking using Single-Ring Circular Array Antenna and Space Division Table

Abstract

Single-ring circular array antennas can be applied to direction finding systems in order to use nose-section in other purposes, and the interferometry is a proper direction finding method to those systems. We usually make the interferometer baseline long enough to achieve good angular accuracy. However, an interferometer with baseline longer than a half-wavelength has the ambiguity problem. In this paper, we present a novel method for solving the ambiguity problem in interferometry systems. This technique is based on the amplitude comparison method and the space division table, and it can place a target within the angular region in which the ambiguity problem does not occur by roughly estimating direction-of-arrival. The Monte Carlo simulation results show that proposed method can effectively remove the ambiguity problem in the system.