1954 I-R-E TRANSACTIONS-AERONAUTICAL AND NAVIGATIONAL ELECTRONICS

Radio Altimeter
M. CAPELLJ*

T- HE Frequency Modulated Radio Altimeter was quency varies linearly with time and the dotted line
one of the earliest radar equipments to be put on represents the same signal, appearing at the receiver at
the open market. As early as 1936 Western Elec- some period of time later. In this particular application
tric developed and sold their Type IA radio altimeter the period of time is defined by the time taken for the
which was operated up to a maximum height of approxi- signal to travel from the aircraft to the ground and back
mately 5,000 feet. The basic design principles adopted again. Now if these two signals are mixed in a receiver,
in that early equipment have not been changed up to the instantaneous transmitter frequency will be higher
the present time. than the instantaneous received signal and a difference
Since the early Western Electric experiment, several frequency will be detected whose value is proportional
radio altirneters have been designed and manufactured, to the interval of time t and so proportional to the
and in general each new development has carried some height. Moreover, it is evident that this difference fre-
improvements over its predecessor. Techniques have quency is a function of the rate of change of carrier fre-
progresse(t and the operating frequency has increased, so quency and is independent of the carrier frequency
that now equipments are currently being designed in itself. Hence the formula:
the 4,000 mc band. In many respects, this increase in Signal frequency
carrier frequency has helped the development by de-
creasing the percentage bandwidth required, thus easing f = F2- F
the design of the radio frequency components. = X
In attempting to write a paper on this subject it soon
becomes evident that one must either describe an actual where
equipment and explain its somewhat intricate circuits 2H
or else confine the analysis to the principles involved and t =
to indicate the type of circuits which can be used. To do c
both would extend the scope and length of this paper to c = propagation constant.
somewhat cumbersome proportions. Therefore it is pro-
posed to confine the major part of this paper to a defini- For very practical reasons it is impossible to design an
tion of principles, stressing such causes and effects as equipment having a continuously constant rate of
have been found of importance in actual development change of frequency. The designer is therefore forced to
work. depart from this ideal concept and one of the more fre-

T2 Signal Received

6~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I
Fig.1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 ' I1
I
T o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sga
T

Time udli the oeai oi tF

f =(F2- Fi) or f tF

FM radar system is explained in Fig. 1 which gives a

curve of frequency against time. The thick line repre- quent principles adopted is cyclical or periodic variation
sents the signal sent out by a transmitter whose fre- of the transmitted frequency. In this system the trans-
* Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd. (Associated Company ofmitrfeunysvaednalnaranrbtwn
L.T.&T. System), London, England. twvo fixed limits as shown in Fig. 2.

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4 I-R-E TRANSACTIONS-AERONAUTICAL AND NAVIGATIONAL ELECTRONICS June

The curve shows immediately that the original for- obtain the desired effect. It will soon be realized that the
mula f= tE still holds over the major portion of the need for linear sweep is not of supreme importance if
curve. However it is also evident that over a period of certain limitations in performance are tolerated. How-
T, to T2 the beat frequency will first of all decrease to ever by this rather drastic change in the reasoning ap-
zero and then increase to its original value as one passes plied to the problem the altimeter engineer makes his
through the turnover region. There is therefore a period own problem very much more difficult and he is conse-
during each sweep cycle when the instrument is giving quently aware of the deficiencies in the equipment. In-
incorrect information as judged by our original formula. stead of being able to design the ideal system he now
There is in effect time sharing between good information has to defend his rather imperfect instrument.
and bad information and the ratio of good to bad in- The analysis of the signals received from a frequency-
formation will decrease, the greater the delay between modulated Radio Altimeter can be carried out in a num-
transmitted.and received signals, or in other words the ber of ways; however, a very straightforward method
greater the height. Taken to the extreme as shown in is given by Luck in his book, "Frequency Modulated
Fig. 3, with a time delay equal to one half-period of the Radar."' Referring to Fig. 5, the waveforms shown give
modulation cycle there is no constant frequency signal ideal standing wave patterns between antenna and
at all. This of course does not normally occur in practice ground at the two ends of the swept band F, and F2 at a
since with the constants used it would be necessary to height H. When a radiator is pointed at a reflector, there
fly at a height of 100 miles or more. will exist, by virtue of the interference pattern between
transmitted and reflected waves, a standing wave
F2__ Rece1*od
Siv_ Si
Transmitted
Sig=-
i-. pattern between radiator and reflector. This standing
l mTl M l Xwave pattern may be considered as a kind of amplitude
- IItI0[i , \,modulation. The principle is, of course, well known in
the realm of standing wave indicators used in the de-
I i l ffl WWP - .> ' velopment of rf impedance measuring devices.
F

Fl
Fig. 3

The principle of periodic linear frequency modu- 2HF1

lation poses an extremely difficult if not insurmountable |NJ
= /
obstacle. This is the physical embodiment of an equip-
ment having a triangular modulation characteristic as
was shown in Fig. 2. Practical systems have all shown F2
that a sharp turnover is, if not impossible, so difficult
and complex as to be completely impracticable. The sort H 2
of modulation curve usually obtained is shown in Fig. 4. r X2/2 c

Transmitted Received 2H
NF - N, N =-(F2-
C
F) =-- (Swept Band)
C
| 2HF
\ ' / ,' ~~~~~~~~~~~N
=-=tF =f
C
Fig. 5
-'./zt'
-ll -. -.The standing-wave pattern is such that there is
one maximum and one minimum resultant in each half-
T_ _ wavelength of the transmitted frequency. Thus in the
Fig. 4 top figure of Fig. 5 the standing-wave pattern for a
transmitter frequency F, is shown for a given height H.
As can be seen by inspection a curve such as that may From the above reasoning it then follows that the num-
approximate to linearity over only some 60 per cent of ber of complete standing-wave cycles in the space
the time which of course limits the maximum period of separating radiator and reflector is:
time during which good information is received again H H. 2F,
as j-udged by the original concept. N, = or
.It therefore becomes necessary to reconsider the basic X,/2 c
approach to the problem and to investigate whether it '.G .Lc,"rqec ouae aa, crwHl
is really necessary to have a linear frequency sweep to Book Co., Inc., New York, N. Y.; 1949.

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1954 Capelli: Radio Altimeter 5
Similarly for a higher frequency F2 shown in the variants of this circuit, the half-wave counter which pro-
lower diagram the standing-wave cycles are: vides one count per cycle and the full-wave counter
H H* 2F2 which gives two counts per cycle. An average rate
AT2 = - or counter is also by the nature of its circuit a purely "on-
X2/2 C off" device and it can only measure complete cycles or
where half-cycles depending on whether it is half-wave or full-
wave and will ignore all other fractions of a cycle.
c = propagation constant. This immediately introduces the range sensitivity of
When tbe frequency is swept from F, to F2, there will the device which is normally termed the "step-effect"
' . ~common to radar systems of this type. The step effect is
occur a change in the number of standing waves and this
a phenomenon which has been introduced into the sys-
change wilt be tem simply because it has been found impossible to pro-
2H duce a strictly linear and unidirectional modulation sys-
AT2 - NT AT = -- (F2- Fj) tem and precludes the use of a frequency sensitive cir-
C

2H
cuit in the presentation and one has had to resort to the
=-- X swept band. average counter as previously explained.
c

Now if the change from F1 to F2 occupies time t, then "2

the average (and it must be stressed, that it is only the
average) rate of change in the number of standing-wave
cycles is:
2H swept band
T
C

-tF Average
lx
11 2xCount
SweepRate
Frequenoy

H1
which is our original formula. This has been derived
simply to show that the standing-wave pattern is funda- v 2v M v v
mentally the same as the ideal case quoted at the be- 12 345678
ginning of this paper. The important difference is that A1 2 3 45 7 8 9301132. i2rx2xtatee
the new analysis depends on averaging during the fre- Frequeboy
quency sweep whereas the original depends on analysis A
of instantaneous values.
The new, approach now permits the frequency to be
swept in any way desired so long as the direction of Fig. 6
sweep is kept the same and the sweep is completed in a
given time.
Having established that a linear sweep and a non- Fig. 6 shows a typical sweep cycle plotted against
linear system will give us the same number of cycles per time and the curves underneath show the resultant de-
sweep it is evident that whereas the linear system gives tected signals for two heights H1 and H2. Assuming we
us a discrete frequency the nonlinear sweep will give a are using a full-wave counter the curve H1 shows 11
band of frequencies depending on the variation in the phase reversals occurring in one sweep giving all counts
rate of sweep during any one frequency sweep. The per sweep or an average signal frequency of 11 X sweep
average frequency however will be essentially the same frequency. H2 is a somewhat greater height giving 12
as the discrete frequency of the linear system. This re- counts per sweep, or an average signal frequency of
lationship between the ideal and actual systems has a 12Xsweep frequency. It should be noted that Fig. 6
direct bearing on the method used to extract the desired also illustrates that the waveforms corresponding to HI
height information. Whereas the purely linear system and H2 are in fact the same waveform with that corre-
can use a frequency meter proper, operating on instan- sponding to H2 phase advanced by 90 degrees. This then
taneous values the nonlinear system must use an inte- means that an extra count can be introduced simply by
grating device such as the average rate counter. A sec- changing the relative phase of transmitted signal and
ondary condition imposed is that the signal amplifier received signal by 90 degrees, or by a round distance of
must now deal with a band of frequencies instead of 4 wavelength, which in turn means a change of height of
only one at any given height. i'only a 8 wavelength. When one considers that these
The average rate counter in this application is used to equipments operate in the region of 4,000 mc it will be
count the number of cycles per sweep and to average seen that a height change of only 0.75 cms is sufficient
them over many sweep cycles. There are two main to introduce an extra count.

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6 I-R-E TRANSACTIONS-AERONAUTICAL AND NAVIGATIONAL ELECTRONICS June

STEP EFFECT Having made a study of the principles underlying the

The "step effect" concept shows that increments of function of an FM Radio Altimeter it is then necessary
height can only occur in multiples of the sweep fre- to study the behavior of the actual system. Fig. 8 gives
quency. Or to express it in a rather better way, the the classic block diagram of a radio altimeter. The
count rate can only increase in steps of one count per
sweep.
2X 1A .{..

Cycles per sweep =- X swept band.

C
For "Full-Wave" Counter: counts per sweep
411
= 2N =- X swept band.
C

Incremental increase of one count per sweep gives the "step ' I
distance"

4 X swept band .
- t.XWI
XW =l
swept band '
= "sweep wavelength."
Example.. _
For a sweep of 100 mc Fig. 8
AH= 0.75 meter = step distance.

Fig. 7 transmitter T is frequency-modulated by the modulator

M and radiates its signal to the ground. The reflected
To revert to symbols, Fig. 7 shows that the signal is received in the receiver R and mixed with a
2H small amount of transmitter power. The beat signal is
cycles per sweep - N =- X swept band amplified in A and applied to the average rate counter
c C which drives the indicator I. This is very straight
4H forward and nice to behold. Unfortunately nature is not
counts per sweep = 2N = -- X swept band.
(full wave counter) c -_ =
The incremental increase of one count per sweep ©
gives the step distance. Signal

4 X swept band
= 1/4 X XW, where XW = c
swept band + 0an
= "sweep wavelength."
To give an example:
Sweep excursion 100 mc
Al = 0.75 meter = step distance. / \anted Signl
It is very important to note here that the step dis-
tance is independent of the carrier frequency and also
the sweep frequency and dependent only on the swept
band.
The step distance is, as can be seen on Fig. 7, de- D
pendent on whether a half- or full-wave counter is used. / \/
A half-wave counter would give double the step dis- V v1
tance 12 meters. It is therefore evident that the indi- //////////////r/////F/////////
cated height can only increase in steps of one count per Fig. 9
sweep and that some of the steps are not related to
actual changes in height equal to one step distance. quite as kind as that and it is found that there are a few
Fortunately the terrain over which one flies is not abso- snags to be overcome. Fig. 9 gives a more realistic pic-
lutely flat, and the use of integrating circuits on the ture. The wanted signal is shown by the thick line while
output of the counter masks these rather fundamental a few of the unwanted signals are shown by the broken
deficiencies in the system. arrows.

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1954 Pasek and Shanahan: Flare-out Unit AN/APN-71 (XA-3) an Aid to Aircraft Instrument Landing 7

1. Is the reflection of the transmitted signal at the

antenna, and is caused by the incidence of im-
pedance mismatch-100 mc bandwidths or 3 per
cent approx.? Cure by good match say 1.05:1.
2. Is the standing-wave pattern on the cross injection
feeder due to poor mixer matching? Balanced
silicon crystal mixer match must be good.
3. Is the signal getting to the receiver via the coupling
between T and R antenna? This can fix the ulti-
mate receiver sensitivity by representing the
strongest interfering signal at high altitudes. Solu-
tion is wider spacing and narrower beams.
4. Is the interference due to reflected power into the
transmitter oscillator-usually at low altitudes? , / H. Step Distance.
Solution is an attenuator introduced at low alti- \ /
tudes and a directional coupler.
5. Is the double bounce signal? Solution is closer
antenna spacing and narrower beams. Fig. 10
MINIMUM RANGE
Once the most satisfactory compromise has been
found the engineer is faced with the problem of mini- sweep or 600 cps thus making the minimum range fre-
mum range performance. The minimum radar range quency 900 cps. This incidentally raises the low fre-
com inherentnequipment adelay
terformhe
rrepnds to the inherent equipment delays plus
corresponcls p one quency cutoff of the signal amplifier above the major onge
step distance. This is shown in Fig. 10. The receiver microphonic region.
mirpocreon

must therefore reject all signals whose average fre-

quency corresponds to the delay D or less and pass all lows:
higher frequencies. The average minimum range fre- Transmitter power: 500 mw
quency corresponds to the delay frequency plus the FM: 4,200-4,300 mc
sweep frequency. Variation of received signal
A satisfactory arrangement in practice has been found across mixer load: 20 ,u volts to 10 volts
to make the sweep frequency 300 cps and to introduce Maximum amplifier gain: 100 db
artificial delays corresponding to 2 full-wave counts per Amplifier bandwidth: 1 kc-150 kc.

Flare-Out Unit AN/APN-71 (XA-3) an Aid to

Aircraft Instrument Landing*
D. M. PASEKt AND W. J. SHANAHANt

rT HE USE OF altimeter data to produce automati- The AN/APN-71 flare-out unit is a compact, semi-
cally a smooth landing was originally employed subminiaturized, altimeter-computer unit designed to
by the Germans in World War II, thus making complete an ILS approach to touchdown by providing
possible completely blind landings under blackout con- cross-pointer data which, if followed, will produce a
ditions. Subsequent experiments by Telecommunica- landing curve that is nearly exponential. Altitude, ve-
tions Research Establishment (England) and jointly by locity and acceleration data are obtained by FM radar
C & N Laboratory and AWFD, Dayton, Ohio, have techniques and are combined according to the differen-
explored several systems for utilizing height information tial equation of a smooth approach path.
for the most satisfactory landing. One of these has been The comhputer section employs the relation:
under development by the Hazeltine Electronics Corpo- KDdH d2H
ration under contract with the Air Materiel Command, koH + -+ k2 = 0
Wright Field. dt dt2
* Abstract of paper delivered at the Conference on Airborne Elec- in which H refers to the measured height of the plane as
tronics, Dayton, Ohio; 1951.deemndbthFMatmerdHtisheesud
t Hazeltine Electronics Corp., Little Neck, L. I.deemndbthFMaieerdHtisheesud
t Skiatron Electronics & TV Corp., New York, N. Y. velocity of the plane toward the runway, and d2H/dt2 is

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