Calculations of Multipath Range Errors for Variations in Design of the Extended Area Tracking System (EATS)

Abstract

Abstract : The study was aimed at generating data as a function of design factors to assist Pacific Missile Range in specifying an optimum EATS system. The system design factors investigated include system RF bandwidth, RF frequency, height of all relay aircraft, polarization, modulation technique, and tracking technique. The data from this study were presented in the form of computer-drawn error contour plots which describe the region of the missile range where errors exceed a given magnitude. A subset of these plots was examined for each factor under study to determine the effect of that factor on the range measurement errors. One result of this study indicates that an optimum system under the worst conditions may have an rms range error as large as 250 feet in some regions of the coverage area. The results show that an optimum system should have the widest feasible bandwidth, choose a 25,000-foot relay-aircraft altitude, use vertical polarization, use the leading-edge tracking technique, and have a narrow ground-station-antenna beamwidth.