Angle Estimation With Polarization Filtering: A Single Snapshot Approach

When a monopulse radar is subjected to main-lobe barrage interference, the target and the interference source are both located within the 3 dB beamwidth of the radar; the target returns are subsumed by the interference, which results in incorrect detection, erroneous angle measurements, and tracking error. Based on a hybrid polarimetric monopulse radar with six channels, a new approach is presented for estimating the target angle from a single snapshot in the presence of main-lobe barrage interference. By means of polarization filtering and polarization synthesis of signals from multiple channels with two orthogonal polarizations, a new pair of sum and difference signals is formed that represents the angle difference between the target and the interference source. After standard monopulse processing of these new signals and additional compensation, the estimate of the target angle is derived with low computational complexity.