|_/~ ~ Radr

remains for detection. Consequently, airborne radars were

limited to an uplook or co-altitude geometry, or flight at
such high altitude that a target could be detected at ranges
The Development of shorter than the altitude. This seriously limited the
operational usefulness of airborne radar, since the target
Airborne Pulse Doppler could fly on the deck and be undetected. What was
needed was a look-down capability. With these
Radar considerations in mind, the development of pulse doppler
(PD) filled a serious need.
LEROY C. PERKINS CW doppler radar [ 11 was developed near the end of
Boeing World War II. Its range was generally limited by
HARRY B. SMITH transmitter leak-through and near range mainbeam clutter.
DAVID H. MOONEY
To solve this problem, pulsing the transmitter, while
Westinghouse gating off the receiver, was a potential solution. The
earliest record of a ground-based pulse doppler radar is
BACKGROUND .
described by W. W. Hansen in Ridenour "Radar System
Engineering," chapter 5-11, in 1947 [21. This radar used
Ground clutter has been a serious limitation to both a high duty cycle, at a relatively low carrier frequency so
ground and airborne radars for years. Moving target that both unambiguous range and dopper were available.
indication (MTI) using delay line cancelers, when applied The first pulse doppler applied to the airborne
to the airborne case, has not been very successful, problem was the Boeing laboratory Bomarc seeker in the
because of the spectral spread caused by aircraft motion. early 1950s. This work, and the more generic work done
As the aircraft flies faster, or looks at larger angles off at Westinghouse thereafter for a number of airborne
the velocity vector, the problem becomes overwhelming applications are described. This brief history of three
because the clutter spread approaches the pulse repetition decades is depicted in the flow diagram [3, 41 of
frequency (prf) in width, so little or no clutter-free space Figure 1.

'Boeing PD "Proceedings of Joint Services IEEE

Radar"(3) Symposium on (-) PD Radar"(4) Sarnoff Award
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Author's present addresses: L.C. Perkins, 18843 First Place SW, Manuscript received March 8, 1984.
Seattle, WA 98166; H.B. Smith & D.H. Mooney, Westinghouse, Box
1693, Baltimore, MD 21203. This paper was prepared by the authors and formed the basis for their
talk at the Awards Luncheon at NAECON, May 23, 1984, Dayton, OH.
0018-9251/84/0500-0292 $1.00 (© 1984 IEEE

292 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. AES-20, NO. 3 MAY 1984
 Transmitter Carrier
Forward-Hemisphere -
Sidelobe Clutter
A. CW Doppler Spectrum
---
g i
Fc - Fr
B. Pulse Doppler Echo Spectrum
Fig. 2. Comparison of doppler spectra for airbome cw
THE BOEING BOMARC RADAR .....
The U.S. Air Force IM-99 Bomarc project was begun
in 1949 in response to a proposal submitted jointly by
Boeing and the University of Michigan.
Each Bomarc missile had its own target seeker radar
because its 400-mile range took it beyond accurate
ground radar control. It was known from the initial
Boeing/Michigan studies that the airborne radar would
have to have some form of ground-clutter discrimination
to be effective against incoming bombers at all altitudes.
The first model of Bomarc (IM-99A) sidestepped the
clutter problem by employing a high altitude attack
geometry which allowed the use of a conventional pulsed
radar because targets at a range less than the Bomarc's
altitude would suffer no clutter interference.
Meanwhile, Cecil K. Stedman, head of Boeing's
Physical Research Unit, addressed the full clutter
problem. He hired Raymond A. Glaser, who had been
working on doppler radar at MIT's Radiation Laboratory,
to head a group of mathematicians and radar engineers-
including Leroy C. Perkins-to design an effective anti-
clutter airborne target seeker. Glaser, from his MIT
experience, believed that the transmitter-spillover noise
problem of a CW doppler radar would prevent it from
ever achieving the necessary 20-mile detection range on a
100-square foot target. Therefore, his group set about
looking at pulse doppler schemes such as those suggested
by W. W. Hansen and others at the MIT Radiation
Laboratories [5].
Since the Air Force was not convinced that the
potentially simpler CW doppler system could not be made
to work, they also funded the Ryan Aircraft Company, of
San Diego CA, to develop a CW seeker.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
Main-Beam Clutter
.
Incoming Target
Clutter- Target
Free
Space I
I1
Fc Fc + Fr f
and pulse doppler radars. a) cw doppler spectrum; b) pulse doppler echo spectrum
Boeing's breakthrough came in late summer of 1951
in an all night brainstorming session between Glaser and
Perkins. Mulling over the problems with the aid of
blackboard sketches, the solution was revealed when they
varied the parameters on a spectral diagram of
hypothetical doppler target and clutter echoes.
The explanation starts with Figure 2a which shows:
CW doppler transmitter carrier (amplitude not to scale);
the echo from an incoming target as seen from a missile
platform in level flight; the antenna main-beam ground
clutter with the beam at a depressed angle; and the
antenna side-lobe clutter from the ground both ahead of
and behind the missile.
For pulsed operation we have the central portion of
the spectrum of a pulsed transmitter and adjacent lines
spaced at the repetition frequency, Fr; the envelope of the
array is a sin X/X characteristic. The received signal
spectrum in Figure 2b is a similar array except that each
"line" is a replica of the doppler-shifted target and
clutter signals of Fig. 2a. It is clear that if the prf is too
low, the target at one line will be overlapped by the
clutter from the next higher line.
If the carrier frequency is 101' Hz (X-band) and
Bomarc's horizontal speed is 2600 ft/sec the sidelobe
clutter will spread 50 KHz. If the target is closing at a
ground speed of 1000 ft/sec its echo will have a
maximum additive doppler shift of about 70 KHz.
Therefore, to create the clutter-free doppler space for the
target as in Fig. 2b, the prf must be a minimum of 50
KHz plus 70 KHz or 120 KHz!
Glaser and Perkins spent the rest of the night
assessing the implications of this radical departure of prf
from the usual one or two KHz. Items considered were
the following: Range determination becomes ambiguous
VOL. AES-20, NO. 3 MAY 1984 293
beyond about 0.8 mile. This was not a problem, since the
Bomarc needs only line-of-sight rate to steer a collision
course. If the prf is fixed at one particular value, a
closing target echo will be eclipsed periodically by the
transmitter pulse with probable loss of target resulting.
Eclipsing can be avoided by increasing the prf gradually
and when it gets too high (say 250 KHz) cut it in half
and start over.
No adequate source of high-power, coherent
transmitter pulses was known. The solution was to have
the Varian klystron people put a control grid in one of
their high-power oscillator tubes; then injection-lock the
phase of each succeeding rf pulse to the stable local
oscillator (STALO).
TR tube recovery time was too long to have full
receiver sensitivity immediately following the transmitter
pulse. Recovery time can be shortened by pulsing the TR
keep-alive electrode.
By late fall of 1952 a demonstration breadboard of the
high-repetition-rate radar had been completed and
installed in a rooftop "penthouse" overlooking Boeing
Field where real moving targets were to be seen. A C-47
transport airplane was tracked from takeoff out to a range
of about 6 miles.
Following the penthouse testing, the breadboard set
was moved into a Curtis C-46 Commando to measure
ground clutter from the air. Later the set was again
moved into a trailer and hauled to Fort Lawton
overlooking Puget Sound where successful chaff and
ECM tests were made using a special ECM B-29 from
Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
In the summer of 1953 the Air Force was convinced
that pulse doppler was a viable mechanization for the
Bomarc B target seeker, and terminated the Ryan CW
backup development work.
Boeing gave a bidders' briefing and requested
proposals for the development of a Bomarc B prototype
radar; RCA's Los Angeles Radar Division was the
successful bidder. It turned out to be a tough
assignment-four and a half years later RCA was still
having trouble meeting the stringent requirements.
In the meantime Westinghouse had developed a
prototype of such promise that, by the fall of 1958, the
Air Force, with Boeing's concurrence, selected
Westinghouse to produce the target seeker, DPN-53, for
the Bomarc B missile. 301 seekers were delivered.
MEANWHILE AT WESTINGHOUSE .
The effort [6, 7] at Westinghouse differed
significantly; the Boeing effort was directed to the single
application of the Bomarc target seeker, while the
Westinghouse effort was devoted to a wide variety of
applications. In addition, there were a number of
fundamentally different mechanization approaches.
In April 1953 Harry Smith persuaded top Defense
management in Baltimore (Nick Petrou and Sy Herwald)
294
to start a Westinghouse generic R&D pulse doppler radar
program with in-house funding. Also, in mid-1953,
Westinghouse received a contract to study the Hawk
missile system for the Army. As the study progressed it
was concluded that pulse doppler ws an attractive choice
for the seeker radar. Since an experimental demonstration
seemed highly desirable for both programs, a laboratory
effort was started in September 1953 with David Mooney
as the principal investigator. A partial radar was
assembled and was demonstrated to the Army evaluation
team in early 1954. The demonstration hardware
consisted of a fully coherent grid-pulsed, 1-watt-peak
power, 1/12 duty-cycle klystron amplifier fed by a cavity
stabilized microwave klystron oscillator; a 30-MHz i-f
receiver; a single narrow band doppler filter, or velocity
gate; receiver range gating and range tracking provisions;
and a conical-scan angle track arrangement. The
demonstration consisted of manually acquiring the signal
from an unaugmented moving automobile at about one
mile range, and tracking it in range, velocity and angle.
While the performance was impressive, the Army
concluded that a less risky approach was to go with a
CW doppler semi-active seeker.
The in-house program was continued, with
concentration on airborne intercept and AEW
applications. Airborne intercept (AI) radar was a major
Westinghouse product line and a pulsed doppler (PD)
version would provide a good base for development.
Mooney and Smith were to be part of all Westinghouse
pulse doppler developments with over 25 pulse doppler
patents jointly and individually.
The next model [Fig. 3], was configured to fit in the
cabin of the DC-3 company aircraft and was instrumented
with a magnetic tape recorder and scope camera for
recording clutter.
It had improvements in a number of different ways: It
had a klystron transmitter of 100 watts average, and a
duplexer to permit use of a single search-track antenna.
Fig. 4 shows a typical block diagram of such a radar.
The development of the higher power transmitter was
a formidable task, and nearly stopped the program.
Klystron amplifiers of that era had to be cathode gated
with a pulse on the order of 20 kilovolts (at one ampere),
with a pulse repetition rate of over 100 KHz. In addition,
the jitter requirement on the pulsing was on the order of a
few nano-seconds. Very low ripple voltages had to be
maintained to prevent putting sidebands on clutter.
Eventually, the transmitter was developed, and the
system was flown over a four month period during 1955,
and the nature of airborne clutter was verified and
analyzed [8-12].
Of all the problems encountered, the one requiring the
most work was to get a receiver subsystem that was free
of spurious signals, or "birdies", caused by harmonics of
the prf, or high order mixer products. The necessity to
perform range gating and "main bang" blanking early in
the receiver before single sidebanding, makes birdie
freedom very difficult. This appeared to be impractical
1984 PIONEER AWARD
 Fig. 3. First pulse doppler Al radar (1956)

Platform Antenna
Motion Position

Fig. 4. Block diagram of early Westinghouse pulse doppler radar.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. AES-20, NO. 3 MAY 1984 295
with a continuously variable prf, such as required in the
Boeing approach. Our solution was to use discrete fixed
prfs, all of which were harmonically related to the i-f
center frequency. Even with this, several receiver local
oscillators must vary in frequency in order to position
main beam clutter into a notch filter, or to position a
target in a narrow band-pass filter. Great care in the
selection of frequencies, and in choosing filter
characteristics were an essential part of achieving birdie-
free operation.
While the elimination of birdies, and the achievement
of a high-prf transmitter were the major difficulties with
the early pulse doppler radars, there were a number of
lesser problems:
One was getting a suitable duplexer which would
protect the receiver, but be fully recovered in a
microsecond or so, since weak targets from long range
can appear just after a transmit pulse. In the first high-prf
transmitter, the duplexer consisted of a ferrite circulator
and a ferrite switch to gate off the receiver during
transmission. The switch provided enough isolation, but
had dredful drift problems, even at room temperature. A
testing program for a suitable TR gas tube turned up one
brand of one type which worked well enough at the high
prf and low peak power to be useful. In the meanwhile,
the Westinghouse tube laboratory worked on a gas tube
especially aimed at the problem. Suitable tubes were
eventually developed, and all subsequent Westinghouse
radars have used such tubes.
Another difficult problem was getting a flight worthy
STALO [131, that would not spread main beam clutter
due to vibration-induced sidebands and pick-up. The early
stalos were cavity stabilized klystron oscillators, with
special shock and vibration isolation, and were adequate
for the fixed tuned klystron amplifiers. Much later, when
suitable components became available, stalos became
frequency synthesizers, that were channel tunable to be
compatible with wide band TWT's.
A rather mundane problem was developing a suitable
r-f target simulator for system sensitivity minimum
detectable signal checking. Our initial simulator was a Fig. 5. First U.S. Air Force X-Band Al radar (1957)
hom fed crystal detector, which was modulated by an
audio amplifier for doppler simulation. While it worked,
it was unsatisfactory as a calibrated MDS test. A motor
driven belt was trid next, with little reflectors attached to
the belt, but the reflectors flew off at high speed (the first
"flyoff"). Finally, we found that a serrodyne provided
the solution by giving a known amplitude at a set- a mechanically rotating switch which used a stream of
frequency, and compatible with multiple prfs. mercury as the contactor. It worked, but as the mercury
System timing stability was a problem with the got dirty, the switch got very noisy. Later versions solved
vacuum tube technology of the time and was solved by the problem with semiconductor switches.
dc on critical heaters and care in wiring, grounding and The detection threshold in those days was a fixed
shielding. All pulses were generated from a common high level, and the noise level was set manually. The lack of
frequency crystal oscillator, and used start and stop constant false alarm rate (CFAR) technology forced one
triggers. to set the threshold higher than desired, so the early
The doppler filter bank required some kind of systems generally had sensitivities [14] less than
commutating switch, to sequentially test the output with a theoretical. Later radars used a cell-averaging CFAR
threshold. The best device we could find at that time was which solved the problem.

296 1984 PIONEER AWARD

 Fig. 6. U.S. Air Force C-Band long-range Al pulse doppler radar, AN/APG-55 (1959)
U.S. AIR FORCE INVOLVEMENT .....
As a result of these developments, the Air Force
decided to fund Westinghouse to build advanced models
of Al radars, which would demonstrate full functional
capability. A breadboard X-band model [Fig. 5] similar
to the previous flyable model, and a C-band model [Fig.
6] with extended range performance and pre-prototype
packaging were contracted in July 1956 (AF
33(616)3700). The Westinghouse Al radar had a number
of significant differences from the Boeing Bomarc
approach:
I ) It used a dual mode transmitter, with a high duty cycle (0.46) for
search, and a lower duty cycle (0.1) for track, to optimize detection
range, while measuring true range in track.
2) The transmitter was a klystron amplifier rather than an injection
locked klystron oscillator.
3) It measured true range by comparing ambiguous range from
several fixed prf's. [15]
4) The multiple prfs distributed '-eclipsing' (due to the necessary
receiver blanking) during ''search".
5) These multiple prf's were fixed, as a necessary step in avoiding
spurious signals due to harmonics and PRF lines from clutter.
6) All prfs and i-f local oscillators were derived from a single
source, to eliminate spurious signals.
7) It used a bank of narrow band doppler filters to speed up the
search mode.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. AES-20, NO. 3 MAY 1984
8) Mainbeam clutter acquisition and clutter track was provided to
work with clutter reject filters and controlled frequency oscillators to
-notch out" main beam clutter.
9) It was provided range-vs-azimuth,a nd doppler-vs-azimuth
displays as well as a "pause-to-measure-range" to get range for the
search display.
There were several state-of-the-art limitations. At the
time wide-band TWT power amplifiers, suitable
transistors or integrated circuits were not available. Due
to hardware size, only one or two receiver channels
seemed feasible for all but ground application. Rapid
recovery TR gas tubes were yet to be developed. Despite
these limitations, working radars were realized.
The X-band radar was accepted by the Air Force in
October 1957, after demonstration of aircraft acquisition
and tracking from the rooftop lab, and flight tested in the
DC-3 in 1958. Meanwhile, the high power C-band APG-
55 was built, and was flight tested in a B-66 in 1959.
EARLY NAVY INVOLVEMENT .....
In 1957 the Navy began to cosponsor the PD effort.
This resulted in a long range track-while-scan pulse
doppler radar, the APQ-81 [Fig. 7] which was started in
May 1957 (NOas 51-7500). The APQ-81 was intended to
297
 Fig. 7. U.S. Navy track-while-scan pulse doppler radar, AN/APQ-81 (1960)
be used on the AWS-404 or ''missileer" airborne
multishot fleet defense system; that system was
discontinued but the radar development continued.
Rooftop simultaneous tracking of multiple airborne targets
was achieved and later demonstrated in flight test,
including range measurement within the search dwell
time. A key to the TWS operation was the programming
of the prf discretely and continuously over several values
during a dwell time of the antenna beam. The -81 used
digital processing of data to establish track files; it used a
medium duty cycle (.08) and multiple range gated
channels which increase the information rate and provided
time gating for additional clutter rejection. These
techniques along with an extremely low side lobe antenna
provided the technology needed for AWACS, and their
use became more attractive with the advent of digital
realization of the fast Fourier transform. Such digital
techniques were reduced to practice on the Future
Weapon Control System (FWCS) a Navy development
contract that followed the APQ-81.
WESTINGHOUSE BOMARC SEEKER, DPN-53 .....
The credibility of pulse doppler radar as a solution to
the clutter problem was enhanced also by the production
and fielding of the AN/DPN-53 pulse doppler target
seeker. This equipment was developed and produced in
the late 1950s by Westinghouse for the USAF IM99B
BOMARC under contract to Boeing (a precursor of the
arrangement that would emerge 16 years later for the
AWACS and 23 years later on the B-i).
In March 1956 Westinghouse decided to spin off a
development of a pulse doppler target seeker that would
compete for the production buy of the Bomarc, since
Boeing had contracted with RCA for the development
model. The Westinghouse model [Fig. 81 was based on a
298
simplified version of the Al radar, and had the following
characteristics:
I) It used a fully coherent klystron amplifier transmitter, with a grid
for pulsing.
2) It used multiple, fixed prf's to distribute eclipsing during search.
3) During track it switched prf when eclipsing occurred.
4) It used a STALO that could tolerate severe missile vibration.
As a result of evaluation by Boeing, the
Westinghouse version was selected for production.
Over the life of the program, over 300 DPN-53's
were produced and deployed, constituting the first
operational pulse doppler radar; BOMARC missiles were
successfully fired against drones at all altitudes.
LATER NAVY INVOLVEMENT: AWG 10, 11,
12 .....
During the period 1959-65 Westinghouse proposed a
system for the Navy F4 that consisted of hardware and
techniques that had evolved from the U.S. AF and Navy
developments and the DPN-53 seeker. The result was the
AWG-10 fire control system using the APG-59 pulse
doppler radar [Fig. 9] which was also procured by the
United Kingdom (AWG-1 1 & 12). In this same time
period, Ferranti Limited (of the United Kingdom)
assigned a score of people to work at Westinghouse-as
part of a royalty agreement-a linkage which proved
particularly beneficial on the British AWG-1 1 and 12.
Over 1000 AWG 10, 11 and 12 systems were delivered
starting in 1963. This was one of the first all-solid-state
designs with built-in test and fault isolation. Another
unique feature was the ability to switch from PD to pulse
operation (the latter using CHIRP techniques). The
display accommodated both modes, i.e., velocity vs.
azimuth and range vs. azimuth.
1984 PIONEER AWARD
 Fig. 8. Westinghoulse BOMARC seeker pulse doppler radar, AN/DPN-53 (1959).
Fig. 9. U.S. Navy AWG-10 fire control pulse doppler radar, AN/
APG-59 (1963).
In order to provide operation in the sidelobe clutter
region a low sidelobe antenna along with a change from
analog to digital computation and built-in testing was
proposed to improve the AWG-10 (called the DAWG-
10). While this antenna was never incorporated into
production radars, the antenna work set in motion the low
sidelobe technology required for AWACS.
AWACS RADAR.....
The E3A, or AWACS radar [Fig. 10] evolved
between 1962 and the mid 1970s and represents a very
demanding long-range surveillance application of pulse
doppler. Over 50 have been delivered since 1976.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
The AWACS technology was founded on the APQ-81
and made more feasible by the use of digital techniques
and dramatic antenna sidelobe reductions. The resulting
configuration was demonstrated.in the Air Force Overland
Radar Technology Program (ORT) which started in 1965
and ended in 1967. This program evaluated overland
radar performance of radar brassboards provided by
Hughes, Raytheon and Westinghouse, with AIL as the
test monitor and evaluator.
A flyoff with Hughes between July 1970 and the fall
of 1972 resulted in a full scale development contract from
Boeing to Westinghouse; production shipments
commenced in 1976. This equipment is also being used
by NATO (with a "maritime" pulse mode added).
The AWACS radar scans 360 degrees continuously in
azimuth with electronic scan in elevation to obtain height
information. It employs a medium duty cycle and a
digital signal processor and computer for radar control.
To enhance performance in the sidelobe clutter area, time
gating is utilized. The processing provides the equivalent
of n independently time-gated receivers that reduce
average sidelobe clutter by n.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS .....
In October 1962 the IRE David Samoff medal was
awarded to Smith for contributions to pulse doppler radar.
In the early 1960s some of the Missileer concepts,
particularly the track-while-scan and missile multishot,
were incorporated into the U.S. Navy version of the
''TFX" or F-111 aircraft. The radar/missile control
system for,such a system eventually was used in the F-14
in the form of the AWG-9 and Phoenix missile system
VOL. AES-20, NO. 3 MAY 1984 299

CABINET EQUIPMENT
ANTENNA
Fig. 10. U.S. Air Force AWACS long range surveillance pulse doppler radar (Transmitter not shown), (1975).
produced by Hughes. (The AWG- 10 preceded the AWG-
9 but was assigned nomenclature later).
By the latter part of the 1960s, analog to digital
converters had achieved sufficient dynamic range and
speed to permit quantizing the received radar signal into
in-phase and quadrature channels; this digital format
could be rapidly processed to perform filter bank and
clutter elimination functions by a digital Fast Fourier
transform. These techniques were used on a
Westinghouse candidate for the F-15 which lost a flyoff
to a Hughes model in 1970. This outcome was reversed
on the next two flyoffs (for the AWACS and F-16). In
the later 1970s Hughes also designed and later produced
the radar for the F- 18 (no flyoff).
During this period the U.S. AF sponsored work [16,
17] on "medium prf"; the use of a prf lower than that
required to yield a clutter free area was made possible by
the development of lower sidelobe antennas and the
feasibility of using digital processing. A motivation for
the lower prf was to obtain better tail chase capability by
300
DDP
Starboard Side
working in the sidelobe clutter area. Actually these
benefits derive from the time gating reduction of clutter
such as used inthe AWACS radar. The time gated
approach usually results in a lower duty cycle, hence the
term "medium duty cycle" would be more descriptive
but "medium prf" has become the term in common use.
The velocity ambiguities of discrete clutter spikes brought
on by the "'medium" prf were made more tolerble by use
of a clutter "guard channel". The F-15 fly-off tested
these concepts which were incorporated as a mode of the
APG-63 produced by Hughes for the F- 15. A single
signal/guard channel arrangement was devised for the
Westinghouse WX radar described next. This was used in
the F-16 fly-off and is used in the APG-66 production
radars [18] produced by Westinghouse for the F-16.
In the early 1970s control of false alarms was carried
to extreme in a Westinghouse tail waming radar that won
another U.S. AF flyoff (with AIL) in 1976. The ALQ-
153 has virtually no false alarms (1 or less per day) and
over 200 have been delivered for the B-52 fleet.
1984 PIONEER AWARD
 Fig. 11. U.S. Air Force pulse doppler radar for the F-16, AN/APG-66 (1976).
THE WX FAMILY .
In 1972 Westinghouse initiated the development of a
modular radar family based on a -design-to-cost"
concept. The family was designated the ''WX" and
ranged from a WX-50 to a WX-1000 with the WX-200
pursued as a center line model to demonstrate the concept
(the number represented the recurring price averaged over
1000 units). A close derivative of this, the WX-160, was
the basis of the Westinghouse entry into the F16 radar
competition and it won the flyoff conducted by General
Dynamics in 1975. This radar [Fig. 11] is now designated
the APG-66 and about 1500 have been produced. Besides
the multiple application provided by modularity there
were two other main thrusts of the WX radars: the use of
modern digital technology to reduce recurring cost (by a
factor of about 3) and to improve the reliability (by a
factor of about 10) while providing equal or better radar
performance. This was conclusively demonstrated by the
APG-66 which was produced below its original design-to-
cost target (equivalent to $160,000 in 1974 dollars). An
improved version of the radar, the APG-68, has added a
programmable signal processor for more flexibility (such
as track-while-scan, etc.) and a dual mode transmitter
(similar in concept to that used in the 1950 models),
except for a TWT, and this version is just starting
production.
The WX introduced the use of a mux bus (termed
"digibus") concept to connect all modular units in a
digital fashion and all units could be easily substituted
since there are no adjustments-a far cry from the early
days. In the early WX models it was decided to
incorporate the ability of the processor (and the receiver)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL.
to handle doppler beam sharpening and synthetic aperture
(SAR) type processing so as to make the radar more
useful for air to ground applications.
The modularity concept has proved itself in the
adaptation of the APG-66/68 to other applications
yielding a great deal of commonality of hardware and a
great reduction of non-recurring costs. For example, a
derivative of the 66 is being produced for the U.S.
Army's DIVAD system (a single radar serves two
antennas in a prf interlaced time shared manner to
provide simultaneous search and track by the two
antennas).
Using the APG-68 as a baseline, Westinghouse was
selected by Boeing and the U.S. AF in late 1981 to
provide the radar for the B 1-B, later designated the APQ-
164.
Other pulse doppler radars have been built for special
applications in smaller numbers.
SUMMARY .. . . .
It is interesting to look back over thirty years of pulse
doppler development. Current systems are modular,
reliable with very predictable performance, and many
modes of operation that are largely controlled by
software. Most of the theory corresponds closely to that
which was known in the 1950s, and much of the
performance accomplishments are things that we strove
for in the early 1960s but could only accomplish to a
limited degree. Working in the sidelobe clutter region has
improved the usefulness and versatility of pulse doppler
and this was made possible by the achievement of ultra-
AES-20, NO. 3 MAY 1984
low sidelobe antennas and the extensive use of digital
techniques. The latter not only contributed to flexibility
and reliability but provided performance that could not
otherwise be achieved with a reasonable amount of
hardware. We progressed from keyed CW operation to a
time gated operation with an intermediate duty cycle and
have ultimately arrived at radars that combine the ease of
use associated with pulse radar but with clutter rejection
and the ability to perform special functions provided by
the doppler-such as beam sharpening, SAR, navigation
and identification of airborne and ground-moving targets.
This has been achieved in many incremental steps, by
many individuals and organizations, working within the
pattern of a coherent radar approach.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .
The Boeing Pulse Doppler development team
achieved much in a short span of time. Among the group
led by Ray Glaser there were some outstanding talents:
Robert B. Robinson worked out the automatic pulse
repetition frequency control (APRFC) and other clever
circuitry; Raymond E. Pederson performed system
analysis and invented a continuously variable, ultrasonic,
mercury delay line used to test the APRFC; Kenneth J.
Hammerle performed mathematical analyses; Pierre E.
Dorratcague and Bruno Strauss designed the transmitter;
Robert C. Lee designed the STALO; William B. Adam
and Eli J. Titefsky devised the rf plumbing, antenna and
TR tube arrangement; Harold L. Rehkopf, George F.
Sullivan and Harlow J. Evenson conducted system
testing.
Joe Korosei, Wright Field Air Force representative,
was a valuable ally, not only in approving funds but in
giving access to U.S. Air Force (AFSD) resources such
as the B-29 ECM airplane.
One of the most significant contributors to the
Westinghouse radars was William Skillman as a technical
architect and analyst on a number of programs, including
the AWACS radar and the APQ-81.
302
Louis P. Goetz performed systems analysis during the
early phases. Walter Ewanus developed the ranging
systems, while William Quigley did the same for the
doppler tracker and later got the DPN-53 through
acceptance tests. Lewis Heyser tackled the early
transmitter, as well as the challening AWACS
transmitter. Tom Fell did much of the "birdie" hunting
on early as well as later radars (81 and AWACS). Bill
Dempsey was responsible for getting the APG-55 built.
Herbert Grauling worked on the early STALO design and
D. Cooke on the later ones. Bill List led the development
work on the DPN-53 while Ben Vester phased it into
production. The late Jim Finlayson was responsible for
the technical aspects of the AWG-10 design while Earl
Rix, Carl Shyman and Hank Lawton led the design and
production.
Johnnie Pearson, Bill Jones and Bob Cowdery were
key contributors to the APQ-81 and AWACS while
Wayne Fegely, Noel Longuemare, Jack McDonough,
Keefer Stull, George Reeder, Wes Bruner, Erv Smith,
Harry Brown, Bill Long and many others were involved
in the hardware that was developed in the late 1960s and
early 1970s; Wayne Weigle, Larry Schafer and John
Stuelpnagel mastered the software that made the digital
radars work. Freeman Fruge led the debugging and
acceptance testing of almost all of the major PD radars
after 1958. The late Dick Bauer led the tail warning
effort. Phil Hacker and Ed Mittleman developed the
antennas required for the different models. John Stuntz
played key management roles, especially in the AWACS
and F-16 radar programs.
In the customer community, Hal Reese and Tom
Jones at the U.S. AF Avionics Lab sponsored the early
work; Herb Carlson, Jack Russell and later Chuck
Francis, did the same for the U.S. Navy. Hans Peot
fostered the ORT and early AWACS work along with
Bill Canty of MITRE. Ron Longbrake, Mike Lowe and
Bill Judd provided direction to the F-15, F-16 and related
efforts.
1984 PIONEER AWARD
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