- Preview
- Products
- Catalog
- Receiver Protectors
- Magnetrons
- TWT's
- CFA's
- Transmitters
- Switches
- Pressure Windows
| Magnetrons |  |
|
Frequency Agile Magnetrons
Frequency agility (FA) in regard to radar operations, is defined as the capability to tune the output frequency of the radar with sufficient speed to produce a pulse-to-pulse frequency change greater than the amount required to effectively obtain decorrelation of adjacent radar echoes.
It has been firmly established that FA, together with appropriate receiver integration circuits, affords reduced target scintillation/glint, improved ability to detect targets in a clutter environment, elimination of 2nd time around echoes, and improved resistance to electronic countermeasures, over that possible with a fixed frequency or tunable radar system. It is important to note that, with the exception of ECM resistance, increasing the pulse-to-pulse frequency spacing will increase the amount of system performance improvement that can be realized to a maximum occurring at the point where full pulse echo decorrelation is obtained (nominally 1/tp). Pulse-to-pulse frequency spacings greater than this critical value produce no further increase in system performance, and, in fact, may result in a performance decrease due to the large "IF" inaccuracies arising from the need for the AFC to correct larger pulse-to-pulse frequency errors.
On the other hand, as regards resistance to electronic jamming (ECCM), the greater the pulse-to-pulse frequency spacing, the more difficult it will be to center a jamming transmitter on the radarfrequency to effectively interfere with system operation.
Each radar system application must be considered separately to determine which FA parameters will best satisfy the particular need. Just as the FA requirements of each radar differ, so also do the mechanisms differ for optimally producing the required agility parameters. No single tuning scheme has been found which will universally satisfy the requirements of every FA application. For this reason, CPI produces a broad range of FA tuning mechanisms for coaxial magnetrons; each mechanism offering the optimum combination of parameters for a particular application.
