Optimization of Gimbal Parameters to Improve the Boresight Error Performance of Airborne Radomes

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of gimbal geometry parameters on the electromagnetic performance of streamlined radome for airborne applications. The work demonstrates that the gimbal position significantly affects the boresight error performance. The optimization of gimbal position is performed, and the resultant boresight error is limited to 1.5 mrad while keeping the insertion loss below 0.25 dB over the entire antenna scan angle range. The analysis of the antenna-radome system is carried out using the 3D ray tracing method. This work shows that the gimbal geometry parameters provide additional degree of freedom for improving radome performance parameters and can be applied to both the gimbal mounted and electronically scanning antennas enclosed by streamlined radomes.

Design of Airborne Radome Using Novel Temperature Dependent Electromagnetic Modeling

“…This coordinate transformation takes into account the gimbal rotations in the azimuth and elevation planes. Due to a relatively small effect of gimbal offsets on radome performance parameters, the values of elevation and azimuth gimbal offsets are set to zero [25]. Then, the rays are traced from each source point to the radome wall, and the point of interception of rays with the radome wall is determined.…”