Patent ID: 9075128
Filing Date: 2015-07-07
Classification: G01S,H01Q

Abstract:
1. A method for digitally distinguishing mainlobe detections from grating lobe and sidelobe detections, the method comprising: applying receive weights to return radar data, initially transmitted by radar transmit elements of a plurality of subarrays of an array radar antenna, each at a subarray transmit angle, for each radar receive element of each subarray to steer each subarray to a direction other than the subarray transmit angle; applying a subarray weight to each steered subarray to generate receive beam data of the array radar antenna having magnitude and phase components; determining the scale factors for the receive beams in accordance with:  where |RBP(BeamNum)|  where Ang applying the determined scale factors to a subarray beam data magnitude for each steered subarray to generate scaled subarray beam data magnitudes; generating guard beam data for each steered subarray based on the scaled subarray beam data magnitudes by selecting a maximum value of the scaled subarray beam data magnitudes in accordance with in accordance with:  where determining if the return radar data corresponds to a mainlobe or sidelobe based on the receive beam data and the guard beam data for each subarray, wherein the return radar data corresponds to a mainlobe if: