System and method for navigational determination using range-doppler radar altimetry
| DWPI Title: System for determining position e.g. latitude/longitude coordinates, and velocity of object in flight i.e. aircraft, over environment based on range and Doppler measurements, has circuitry for transmitting minimum range measurements forming minimum range contour and doppler measurements to system |
| Abstract: The technologies described herein relate to computing position of an aircraft, such as latitude/longitude coordinates, based upon range and Doppler measurements generated by a range-Doppler radar sensor system. The range-Doppler radar system irradiates an area below an airborne aircraft with radar signals and detects return signals that have reflected from a surface of the earth. The range-Doppler radar system generates range and Doppler measurements based upon the detected return signals. Range measurements are assigned to Doppler bins based upon the Doppler measurements that correspond to the range measurements, and range measurements are selected from the Doppler bins based upon the values of the range measurements. The selected range measurements are employed to identify positions on a digital terrain map that represents the surface of an environment. The position of the aircraft is computed based upon the identified positions on the digital terrain map. |
| Use: System for determining position such as latitude/longitude coordinates, and velocity of an object in a flight i.e. aircraft, over an environment by a range-Doppler radar sensor system based on range and Doppler measurements. Uses include but are not limited to a jet, a cargo plane, an amphibious aircraft or floatplane, a biplane, a glider, a gyroplane, a helicopter, a tiltrotor, a blimp, and a hot air balloon. |
| Advantage: The system corrects aircraft`s position, velocity, and attitude via the correction vector, and utilizes a navigational system to implement Chi-square tests, Z-tests, Z-square tests, and/or Gaussian modeling tests to determine which range measurements can be removed. |
| Novelty: The system has a range-doppler radar system (RDRS) that is couplable to an object in flight. The RDRS comprises an antenna. A processing circuitry is in communication with the antenna, and causes the antenna to emit radar signals towards a surface (10) of the environment as the object is flying over a surface of an environment. The processing circuitry transmits minimum range measurements forming a minimum range contour (MRC) and corresponding doppler measurements to a computing system (104). The computing system computes a position and velocity of the object based on a received minimum range measurements forming the MRC and corresponding doppler measurements and the known ranges representing the contour of the surface of the environment controlling a mechanical system (102) of the object in flight based upon the computed position and velocity. The RDRS is nadir-pointed. |
| Filed: 9/20/2023 |
| Application Number: US18370624A |
| Tech ID: SD 16074.1 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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