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A Phase Calibration Method for Signal Channel

Monopulse Tracking System Based on Curve
Fitting Technique
CONFERENCE PAPER DECEMBER 2012
DOI: 10.1109/IMCCC.2012.142

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Hao Luo

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Inner Mongolia University of Science and Tec

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2012 Second International Conference on Instrumentation & Measurement, Computer, Communication and Control

A Phase Calibration Method for Single Channel

Monopulse Tracking Systems Based on Curve Fitting
Technique
Yong-Heng Shang, Hao Luo* and Fa-Xin Yu
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Zhejiang University
Hangzhou 310027, China
Email: {yh_shang, luohao, fxyu}@zju.edu.cn
Abstract In view of the disadvantages of tradi tional phase

ground TT&C system in orbit at the same time, therefore "one

station for multip le satellites" will become the main operating
mode of the ground tracking & receiving system. The
unceasingly thickening tasks of testing and control raises
higher demands to the ground system, and thus how to improve
the tracking accuracy, operating efficiency and level of
automation of the satellite tracking system and how to ensure
the successful completion of various tasks have become the
outstanding problems for the satellite earth station technical
staff to be faced. The traditional phase calibration methods of
the earth station are tower oriented, whose shortcomings
include the long phase calibration time, the narrow scope of
application and the high investment cost, especially it is hard to
apply them to the vehicle, airborne, shipboard based mobile
systems. Thus, the traditional methods cannot meet the
requirements of the development of the modern aerospace
industry, there is an urgent need to find new automat ic way for
technological innovation to compensate for the deficiencies of
the traditional calibration methods.

calibrati on methods for single channel monopulse tracking

systems, this paper presents a new phase calibr ati on
method based on the curve fitting techni que. The
operational princi ple of a single channel monopulse
tracking (SCMT) system is first illustrated in detail. B ased
on the curve fi tting techni que , a new phase calibrati on
algorithm is presented by using the error vol tage data
from satellite tracking. Finall y, the effecti veness of the
proposed method is evaluated by the simulated simul ation.
The results show that the proposed method can be applied
to the tracking systems with single channel monopulse
mechanism and can perform the phase calibrati on only
based on the error vol tage's convergence trajectory data
but independent of the signal source such as calibrati on
towers, counteracting the shortcoming of the traditional
phase calibration methods.
Keywords-single channel monopulse tracking system,
phase calibration, curve fitting, sum-differential channel's
phase difference

Through research works, people found that there is a one to

one relationship between the star tracking error voltage
convergence curve and the phase difference between the sum
and differential channels under the single-channel monopulse
tracking mechanism. That is, the error voltage convergence
curve corresponds to a unique phase value, and vice versa.
Starting fro m this new perspective, this paper investigates the
single-channel monopulse tracking mechanism and proposes a
new method of deriving the phase difference between the sum
and differential channels from the error voltage convergence
trajectory. The proposed method is not only effective, reliable,
simple, but also it provides a method to calibrate the phase in
the process of satellite tracking. The proposed scheme can
achieve the real-time optimization of the phase calibration in
the task execution process, which greatly improves the
efficiency.

I.
INT RODUCT ION
The single-channel monopulse tracking system [1,2] is with
high accuracy, stable effect and simp le implementation, it has
therefore been widely used in various types of modern TT&C
stations, remote sensing ground stations, reconnaissance signal
receiving stations, and the tracking systems of fixed and mobile
satellite earth stations. However, before the channel synthesis,
the single-channel tracking mechanism is still div ided into the
sum channel and the differential channel, thus there are
inconsistencies which have the impact on the tracking error
voltage demodulation phase and gain, therefore, at regular
intervals, we should calibrate the phase difference between the
sum and differential channels of the single-channel single-pulse
tracking system. With the development of the aerospace
industry and the increasing of the number of spacecrafts in
orbit, it is required to manage multiple spacecrafts of the

978-0-7695-4935-4/12 $26.00 2012 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/IMCCC.2012.142

II. SINGLE -CHANNEL M ONOPULSE TRACKING PRINCIPLE

In the single-channel mono-pulse tracking system, the sum
signal and the differential signal output from the feed network
573

u   kb cos 1t  kb cos(1t


 )  k (t )

are amplified by the low noise amplifier respectively, and then

the differential signal is modulated by suppressed carrier
modulation, and then they are synthesized to be one signal
called co mbined signal. The carrier component in the spectrum
of the combined signal is the sum signal, while the sideband
component is the differential signal. The receiver performs the
operations of frequency conversion, amplification and
demodulation on the combined signal, obtaining the azimuth
error signal (azimuth error voltage), the pitch angle error signal
(pitch error voltage), and sending them to the servo system to
track.

Where k is the voltage gain, and

down conversion.

1

is the frequency after

Assume the shift value of the phase shifter is  1 , then the

output signals through the phase shifter and the quadrature
phase shifter can be respectively given as follows:
r1 (t )  sin(1t
 1 )

(5)
r2 (t )  cos(1t
 1 )
The phase demodulation result is actually the above
reference signal multip lied by the output signal of the phaselocked loop. Setting the gain to 1, we have:

Assume that the angle relationship between the antenna and

the satellite is shown in Fig. 1, where the XY coordinate
system is perpendicular to the target plane of antenna electrical
boresight.

r1 (t )  u  (t )  sin(1t
 1 )  kb cos 1t  kb 

(6)
sin(1t
 1 )  cos(1t

 )k (t )
After filtering the high-frequency components in Eq. (6),
the reference signal based on Eq. (3) is used to demodulate, and
the normalized azimuth and pitch error voltage can be obtained
as follows:

Pitch

Satellite

A  r1 (t )  u  (t )  k ' sin(
 1   )
O
Direction of
antenna
electrical
boresight 

(4)

(7)

(8)
E  r2 (t )  u  (t )  k  cos(
 1   )
When    1 , that is, the phase difference is equal to the
phase shift value, the above equation can be simplified to:
'


Target
direction

Azimuth

A  r1 (t )  u  (t )  k ' sin 

(9)
E  r2 (t )  u  (t )  k ' cos 
The error voltage value obtained fro m Eq. (8) is sampled at
a certain sampling frequency (in engineering, generally 20
times per second) and sent to the servo system for feedback
processing in order to control the antenna axis to constantly
converge to the target until the satellite is stably captured. For
each sample point, the target tracking angle is calculated as
follows:

Ground
antenna

Figure 1. Angle relationship between the antenna axis and the satellite.

Assume that the sum signal stimulated by the feed source is

given as follows:
u (t )  b cos(t )
While the differential signal is given as follows:

(1)

n1  n  K  n

(10)

(2)
u (t )  b cos(t

 )
Where b is the amplitude of the sum signal,  is the slope of
the normalized error signal with    12   2 2 ,

1 denotes the angle between the target satellite in
  arctan( )
2
the target plane and the X axis,  is the angle between the
direction of the antenna electrical boresight and the satellite,
 denotes the frequency of the tracking signal during satellite
down-transmission, and  denotes the phase difference
between the sum signal and the differential signal before
combination. Assume the modulation signal for the
differential channel is a square wave as follows:

Where  n 1 is the new angle of the target,  n is the current

angle of the target, n is the error angle, and K is a constant
to determine the adjustment rate.



1
2nT  t  2nt 


2
k (t )  


1 2nt   t  2nT  T

2

Thus, the output of the PLL is

Where U n 1 is the new exact error voltage of the target, U n is

the current exact error voltage of the target, U n is the error

Due to the existence of the phase difference, in the tracking

process, the receiver only displays the error voltage after the
target demodulation, without displaying the exact error voltage
corresponding to the real angle information (that is, the error
voltage appears when the phase difference is zero). Thus,
assume that the real angle information of the target corresponds
to the exact error voltage of the target, the angle denoted by Eq.
(10) can be transformed into the equivalent error voltage as
U n1  U n  K   U n

(3)

(11)

voltage, and K  is a constant to determine the adjustment rate.

After obtaining the new exact error voltage, we use it as the
initial value for the next samp le to perform adjustment

574

(U1 A ,U1E ) , then the corresponding demodulated error voltage

should be (U1' A ,U1' B ) , indicating that the demodulated error
voltage of the receiver moves from the point (U A' ,U E' ) to the

according to Eq. (11), and thus we can achieve the tracking

goal. The tracking model can be illustrated as follows:
Let the antenna operate in the S-band, where the half-power
beam width is 20.5  13.3mil (1mil=0.06) ; Set the sampling
interval as t = 50ms; Set all gains that are related to the signal
with linear expression to 1; Set the maximu m deviation angle
values for pitch and azimuth angles operating in the S-band to
6; When the antenna axis points to the direction that is deviated
fro m the target angle  within 0.01 times of the half-power
bandwidth, the antenna is assumed to achieve stable selftracking. By recording the error voltage values during this
process and drawing them in the azimuth-pitch coordinates, we
can get the error voltage convergence trajectory.

point (U1' A ,U1' B ) , and there is an angle  deviated fro m the

point 0. Thus,  can be obtained indirectly by calculating 
using the curve fitting algorithm.
B.

Curve Fitting Algorithm

As shown in Fig. 2, we can easily derive the relationship
between  and  . Since
U A  k cos  U A  k cos(   )
;

U E  k sin  U E  k sin(   )

III. PHASE CALIBRAT ION M ETHOD BASED ON CURVE FIT TING

(12)

which indicates that (U A ,U E ) and (U A' ,U E' ) are on the same

circle with an angle difference  . According to the
infinitesimal method, the direction slope of the error voltage
adjustment (i.e., the slope of the straight line O(U A' ,U E' ) ) can
be calculated as follows

A.

Principle Analysis
Through qualitative analysis of the convergence curve of
the error voltage, we find that we can use the infinitesimal
method in curve fitting in order to determine the quantitative
relationship between the curve and the phase difference
between the sum and differential channels. Since the whole
error voltage curve can be viewed as a curve consisting of
many straight line segments between samples with very small
intervals, we can use the infinitesima l method to analyze the
curve.

U E'
k sin(   ) sin  cos   cos  sin  (13)


U A' k cos(   ) cos  cos 
sin  sin 
On the other hand, the direction slope of the exact error
voltage adjustment can be calculated as follows
k1 

U E sin 
(14)

U A cos 
Since there is an angle  between O(U A' ,U E' ) and
O(U A ,U E ) according to the formula for calcu lating the angle
k2 

UE
(U'A,U'E)

(U'1A,U'1E)

(UA,UE)

between two lines, we have

k1
k2
(15)
 tan 
1  k1k2
Therefore, we can conclude that, during the tracking
process, for each period of sampling interval, the angle 
between the actual adjustment direction of the demodulated
error voltage and the direction of the demodulated error voltage
pointing to O is equal to the phase difference  between sum
and differential channels.

(U1A,U1E)

tan  

UA

Figure 2. Infinitesimal method for curve analysis.

Fro m above analysis, we know that the angle between the

tangent direction of a point on the error voltage convergence
curve and the connection direction of this point to the zero
point is exactly the phase difference  .Thereby we can
establish the differential equation to solve the fitting error
voltage convergence curve. Assume the curve equation is
y  f ( x) , where x represents the on-track azimuth error voltage
value, y is the on-track pitch error voltage value, we have:

Fig. 2 shows the relationship between the exact error

voltage and the demodulated error voltage in the target plane at
a sampling interval t (where the big circle is for the in itial angle
information, while the small one for the angle information after
adjustment). The sample point (U A ,U E ) corresponds to the
error voltage of the starting point when the system phase
difference is zero, while the sample point (U A' ,U E' )
corresponding to the error voltage of the starting point when
the system phase difference is  . Here, the servo system

y
(16)
x  tan 
yy
1
x
Solving above differential equation, we have the fitting
expression:
y

should control the antenna in the direction O, (U A' ,U E' )

according to the demodulation error voltage, and thus the real
error voltage (U A ,U E ) is adjusted in the direction (U A' ,U E' ), O .
Assume the exact target error voltage after t intervals is

575

y
y2

tan  ln( 2  1)  tan  ln Cx 2

x
x
Further, we have
2arctan

y
x
tan  
ln C ( x 2  y 2 )
Where C is a fixed system constant.
2 arctan

V. CONCLUSIONS

(17)

After a lot of analysis and calculation, we find that, during

the tracking process of the single-channel monopulse tracking
system, the curve characteristic of the convergence trajectory
of the error voltage corresponds to the phase difference
between the sum and differential channels. Therefore, we can
use the theory of curve fitting to fit the convergence trajectory
of the error voltage, then we can obtain the function between
phase difference and the error voltage, and finally we can
calculate the current phase difference between the sum and
differential channels. Thus, the proposed method can achieve a
single-channel monopulse tracking system which does not need
to build the source, using only the error voltage convergence
trajectory. Simulation results have demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

(18)

Therefore, after recording the convergence trajectory of the

demodulated error voltage, we can take the n samples of the
error
voltage
convergence
trajectory
(U1' A ,U1' E ), (U 2' A ,U 2' E ), (U3' A ,U3' E ) (U nA' ,U nEn' ) to calculate the
mean of n samples of obtained phase adjustment estimates
ta  n  as follows
tan 1, tan 2, tan 3 tan

1 n
(19)
 arctan i
n i 1
By adding the obtained  to the phase shifter of the
differential channel, we can comp lete the entire operation of
phase calibration.
 

IV. SIMULAT ION RESULT S

According to the above calibration method, we design a
simulation module based on Matlab. We do the following
settings in the simu lation process: (1) The target is always
within a v isible range; (2) the sampling rate of the error voltage
is 20 Hz; (3) the sensitivity of the error voltage adjustment is
100mv/ mil; (4) the phase difference between the sum and
differential channels is 0.3; (5) the starting position is with 6mil in both pitch and azimuth directions; (6) the stable
tracking is assumed when the target converges to 0.01 times
the width of main lobe. The simu lation results are shown in
Fig.3. Fig. 3 (a) shows the convergence trajectory of the error
voltage during the tracking process, which is recorded by the
tracking module, and the blurred points and unreasonable
points are removed. Fig. 3(b) shows that the samples fro m
different positions can be used to calculate the phase
difference between the sum and differential channels due to the
self-similarity of the curve. And with the gradual convergence
of the error voltage, the statistical results will have some
transition errors, but due to the large amount of data, the final
calculation results still meet the accuracy requirements. Fig. 3
(c) shows the comparison results before and after phase
calibration, which indicates that after phase adjustment, the
linearity of the tracking trajectory is very good, and the
tracking performance is greatly improved.

(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 3. T he simulation results.

REFERENCES
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[2]

576

B. J. Wang. Modern satellite communication systems. Beijing:

Electronic Industry Press, 2004.
K. B. David. Modern radar system analysis. Artech House, NC, 1988.