• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.507-520
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• 2011

Conventional radar altimeter system measured directly the distance between the satellite and the ocean surface and frequently used by aircraft for approach and landing. The radar altimeter is good at flat surface like sea whereas it is difficult to determine precise three dimensional ground coordinates because the ground surface, unlike ocean, is very indented. To overcome this drawback of the radar altimeter, we have developed and validated the interferometric radar altimeter signal processing which is combined with new synthetic aperture and interferometric signal processing algorithm to extract precise three-dimensional ground coordinates. The proposed algorithm can accurately measure the three dimensional ground coordinates using three antennas. In a set of 70 simulations, the averages of errors in x, y and z directions were approximately -0.40 m, -0.02 m and 4.22 m, respectively and the RMSEs were about 3.40 m, 0.30 m and 6.20 m, respectively. The overall results represent that the proposed algorithm is effective for accurate three dimensional ground positioning.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.208-216
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• 2017

This paper presents the design method of an FMCW(frequency-modulated continuous-wave) altitude simulator which generates propagation delay signals according to target distances to test the radar altimeter. To improve the conventional RF method for creating delay signals, the simulator is designed by the RF-optics-RF method using optical delay lines. In addition, it is designed to simulate the Doppler shift and jamming that may occur in actual flight environment. In order to evaluate the performance of the developed simulator, the integration tests have been conducted with the radar altimeter. Through the test, we successfully verified the performance of the simulator.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.135-143
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• 2022

In this paper, the compact waveguide slot array antenna for interferometric radar altimeter is proposed. The proposed antenna structure consist of corrugation structure which is applied between each channel to improve isolation, three-channel waveguide slot array antenna and feeder. In addition, to reduce the occurrence of phase ambiguity, the baseline spacing of the three-channel antenna is analyzed and the results are applied to the design. For compact design, reduced height and SMP connector structure are used and the dip brazing method which is the conjugation method after dipping to flux is used for the fabrication of the lightweight antenna. The measurement result of the proposed antenna shows less than 1.41 : 1 (VSWR) and 48.3 dBc (isolation). The antenna gain is higher than 20.2 dBi and the side lobe levels are lower than 18.8 dB (vertical plane) and 10.0 dB (horizontal plane).

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.335-346
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• 2010

Recently, ESA (European Space Agency) has launched CryoSAT-2 for polar ice observations. CryoSAT-2 is equipped with a SIRAL (SAR/interferometric radar altimeter), which is a high spatial resolution radar altimeter. Conventional altimeters cannot measure a precise three-dimensional ground position because of the large footprint diameter, while SIRAL altimeter system accomplishes a precise three-dimensional ground positioning by means of interferometric synthetic aperture radar technique. In this study, we developed an efficient SIRAL SARIn mode processing technique to measure a precise three-dimensional ground position. We first simulated SIRAL SARIn RAW data for the ideal target by assuming the flat Earth and linear flight track, and second accessed the precision of three-dimensional geopositioning achieved by the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm consists of 1) azimuth processing that determines the squint angle from Doppler centroid, and 2) range processing that estimates the look angle from interferometric phase. In the ideal case, the precisions of look and squint angles achieved by the proposed algorithm were about -2.0 ${\mu}deg$ and 98.0 ${\mu}deg$, respectively, and the three-dimensional geopositioning accuracy was about 1.23 m, -0.02 m, and -0.30 m in X, Y and Z directions, respectively. This means that the SIRAL SARIn mode processing technique enables to measure the three-dimensional ground position with the precision of several meters.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2015

We present an implementation result of a computer GUI-based simulator using MATLAB to verify the performance of interferometric radar altimeter(IRA) which is possible to measure the slant range altitude and the cross-track angle to the nearest point for terrain aided navigation(TAN). After a brief description of the principle of TAN and IRA, we present that the grids are divided for the modeling of the reflected signal in digital elevation map(DEM) and so the radar cross section(RCS) of each grid is calculated and the signal-noise ratio(SNR) of the reflected signal in the radar beam width. And the signal processing procedures of the IRA and the structure of the IRA simulator are shown.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.838-848
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• 2014

We present a simulation study of an algorithm for the range and angle of arrival(AOA) estimation with an interferometric synthetic aperture radar(InSAR) altimeter using a real digital elevation model(DEM). We also illustrate a step-by-step procedure of generating raw InSAR data, as well as their range and azimuth compressed data, which is to be used for the subsequent altitude and angle estimation. The AOA is estimated using a deterministic maximum likelihood estimator(DMLE) applied to the first arrived point for each pulse in the compressed data obtained with three antennas. The range bin size and the pulse repetition interval(PRI) are much smaller than the cell size of the DEM used in this study. To make the DEM compatible to the radar parameters, we first generate a higher resolution DEM by linearly interpolating the given DEM. After a brief description of the principle of the InSAR altimeter, the algorithms for altitude and angle estimation are presented, and their performance is assessed through simulation.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.1085-1093
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• 2010

This paper proposes a multiple filter for reduction of received signal fluctuation and enhancement of step altitude edge detection in FMCW radar altimeter. The proposed filter was composed of alpha-trimmed mean filter, frequency variation limiter, and 1/3 order static filter. Simulations by analysis of received signal show that the proposed filter provides better performance than moving average and standard median filters with error reduction. In particular, the proposed filter was improved in the ability of reducing fluctuation for ground hovering.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1190-1196
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• 2014

This paper presents the design of a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave(FMCW) radar altimeter with wide altitude range and low measurement errors. Wide altitude range is achieved by employing the optic delay in the transmitting path to reduce the dynamic range of measuring altitude. Transmitting power and receiver gain are also controlled to have the dynamic range of the received power be reduced. In addition, low measurement errors are obtained by improving the sweep linearity using the Direct Digital Synthesizer(DDS) and minimizing the phase noise employing the reference clock(Ref_CLK) as the offset frequency of the Phase Locked Loop(PLL).

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.39-48
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• 2022

The purpose of this paper was to study how to improve the occurrence of abnormal altitude values of radio altimeter, due to RF interference signals during the flight of aircraft. In flight missions, since it performs a roll-out after several high maneuvers, accurate altitude must be displayed to effectively perform flight missions. Thus, a root cause analysis and trouble shooting were performed for the display of abnormal altitude values of radar altimeters, and a method of reducing RF interference signals by installing an attenuator was examined. Additionally, the verification results for the improvements are also described.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.633-633
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• 2002

We investigated the distributions of sea ice using various microwave remote sensing techniques in the part of Drake passage, Antarctica, between the area 45-75$^{\circ}$W and 55-66$^{\circ}$S. We used Topex/Poseidon(T/P) radar altimeter, ERS-1 altimeter, ERS-2 scatterometer, Nimbus-7 Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), and DMSP Special Sensor Microwave/Imager(SSM/I) data. The sea ice distributions were estimated between May and Jun., 1995 and Oct. and Nov., 1998. The two altimeter measurements (T/P and ERS-1) showed good coherence with the results from the radiometer data in the given period when the ice concentration of 20% and greater was selected. The scatterometer data also showed good correlation with altimetry-implied sea ice surface. The maximum and minimum values of sea ice distribution were appeared in Aug. and Feb., respectively. In general, the sea ice distributions estimated from radar altimeter, radioneter, and scatterometer are well correlated.