Concepts for Pulse Interleaving Radar Modes

A feasibility and performance trade study was performed in Phase I on the MTI Scout Surveillance Radar to provide the capability to interleave surveillance radar modes such as MMTI and ISAR on a pulse to pulse basis. Situational awareness in a littoral environment requires radars to not only detect and track surface vessels, but also to discriminate and, if possible, perform classification. While existing radars have these individual modes, they cannot run them simultaneously. This can severely degrade situational awareness because MTI tracks maybe dropped while executing the ISAR mode which may take several 10s of seconds to perhaps 1 minute to form an image beneficial to the operator. The results of the studies produced an architecture that will be implemented with firmware and software changes only in Phase II, and through simulation and testing will verify the operation and performance benefit.