ELECTRONIC WARFARE

ELECTRONIC COUNTER COUNTER

MEASURE ( ECCM )

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Most modern radars designed for military applications have built in ECCM
which was designed in response to an ECCM specification and
accommodates the best estimate of ECM threats.

Surveillance Radars
The most important design feature of a surveillance radar is its detection
range.Good radar ECCM performance is achieved by as large an average
power as practical coupled with as low a sidelobe antenna level as
achievable.
Noise Jamming. In the main lobe noise jamming situation , the advantage
is with the jammer because the radar experiences two way propagation loss
as contrasted with the one way propagation loss of the jammer . Therefore
the radar must maximise the energy received from the target wih respect to
that received from the target. This can be done by :1. Transmitting more average power
2. Increasing antenna gain

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3. Dwelling longer on the target.
a. Reducing data rate
b. Adaptive scan rate
c. Look Back scanning by antenna.
4. Minimize the noise energy accepted by the radar by spreading the
transmitted frequency over as wide a band as available while
maintaining a receiver band width consistent with
radar range
resolution requirement.
a. Agile frequency
b. Spread spectrum
c. Frequency Diversity
5. Increase the transmitter frequency to narrow the antennas main
beam.This restricts the sector which is blanked by the main lobe
noise jamming and also provides a strobe in the direction of the
jammer.

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Side lobe jamming is minimised by reducing sidelobe response in the
direction of the jammer :1. Ultra side lobe (-20dBi)Thus the number of nulls that can be generated
is number of elements minus one. antennas based on :a. Tight antenna tolerance.
b. Aperture illumination function control
c. Control of systematic, random and spill over errors in aqntanna design.
d.Antennas physical length encompasses many radar wave lengths.
2. Side lobe Cancellation (SLC) is a coherent processing technique in
which a weighting factor ( phase and amplitude) is applied to each of the
antenna elements known as auxiliary antenna, which are than combined in
a summing network.By controlling the weighting factor nulls can be
generated in any direction due to the interferometric action between any
two sets of antenna elements. The only requirement is that the auxiliary
antennas must have a grater response in the direction of the jammer than

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the side lobe response of the main antenna in that direction.Practically
SLC have the capability of reducing the noise jamming by 20 to 30 dB.
However the number of nulls ( degree of freedom) is low since only a
small number of auxiliary antennae can be practically added to the main
antenna. Because the maximum number of sidelobe jammers that can be
handled is equal to the number of auxilary antennae the SLC is easily
saturated.Multipath signals from jammers whose DOA is different from
that of the direct signal will require additional degree of freedom.Another
complication arises when cross polarisation response is significantly
different from that of its main polarisation response. This causes two
orthogonally polarised auxiliary antennae to be added for each degree of
freedom.When wide band jamming signals impinge on the main and
auxiliary ( SLC array) at angles other than normal to the array, the signal
appear to span an arc in angle. Thus a single null is not adequate to cancel
a wideband jammer and closely spaced multiple nulls are required in this
case.Typically then the number of side lobe cancellation loops may might
be specified up to three times the expected number of jammers.

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Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) Processor. :- This technique controls
the effects of noise jamming and other interference on the radar systems
output.The effect of noise jamming on fixed threshold system is to
increase the false alarm rate by a factor of 10,000 for a 3dB increase in the
noise power density. This magnitude of false alarm increase would
saturate the data processing capability of the radar.The most general
CFAR processor maintains a constant false alarm rate by averaging the
estimated interference power in auxiliary cells surrounding a test cell and
using this mean power estimate to adjust the detection threshold in order
to obtain a desired false alarm rate. This is called cell averaging CFAR
and provides higher detection sensitivity than alternate CFAR processors
which use limiting or logarithmic receivers. A Dickie- Fix receiver is also
used to provide CFAR control because it provides protection against fast
swept CW barrage jamming. The Dickie-Fix receiver consists of a wide
band hard-limiter, which constrains the amplitude of the interference to a
fixed value followed by a matched filter that builds up the dynamic range
of the out put.

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Deceptive Jamming ( DECM):- There are basically two types of radar
deception jammers:1.Transponders which generate non coherent returns which emulate the
temporal characteristics of of the actual radar return.
2. Repeaters which generate coherent returns which attempt to emulate
the amplitude , frequency, and temporal characteristics of the actual radar
return. Repeaters usually require some form of RF memory to allow
anticipatory return to be generated.
The false target return must follow the return from the jammer carrying
target and in any event must lie in the same direction within a radar pulse
repetition interval (PRI). To counter this radar employ Leading Edge
Tracker which tracks the target pulse which is ahead of false target pulse.
If the deception jammer uses a delay which is greater than a PRI to
generate an anticipatory false target return, then pulse to pulse frequency
agility eliminates the false targets and pulse to pulse PRI jitter identifies
the false target returns.

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Side Lobe Blanking is used to defeat injection of jamming signals in to
the radars side lobes.A side lobe blanker compares the signal in its main
channel against a signal detected in an auxiliary antenna channel. The
response of the auxiliary antenna channel is arranged to be greater than
any main antenna sidelobe response in that direction but less than the
antennas main-lobe response. A signal is blanked if its auxiliary antenna
response is greater than the main antenna response, which signifies that a
side lobe jammer is present.The orthogonal polarisation response of the
auxiliary antenna must be consistent with that of the main antennas cross
polarisation response or two orthogonal auxiliary antennas must be
employed to allow sidelobe blanking to work against cross polarisation
jammers.An effective sidelobe blanker confines deception returns tom the
same azimuth as the jammer carrying target. If TWS target tracking is
employed to determine target trajectories, then all tracked targets with
only radial trajectories are suspect. Also if two or more radarsare
employed,then only true targets will have the same location on all
radars,while false targets will appear at different positions.

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True target returns tend to fluctuate from scan to scan with fixed
frequency radars and pulse to pulse with frequency agility radars.
Transponder jammers generally send the same amplitude reply to all
signals they receive above a threshold and hence do not simulate actual
target fluctuation.In addition they usually appear wider in azimuth than
real targets due to modulation effect of the scanning radar antennas
response on the real target.
Against Chaff radars use Doppler processing in the form of MTI or pulse
doppler processing to extract target signal.By employing a CFAR
processor which examines range cells surrounding the test cell it is
possible to blank those cells containing chaff returns while passing targets
contained in other Doppler cells.
Expendables such as Decoys and chaff which have the general attributes
of real targets are very difficult to identify as false targets.A simple
method sometimes employed is to test the scintillation characteristics of
detected targets to determine that they follow those of real targets.

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Expendables generally return only a constant signal due to cost
constraints. A more sophisticated method is to look for returns from
rotating components such as rotor bldes of helicopter or compressor
blades of jet engine etc. other methods include high resolution techniques
to classify targets and correlation with other sensors.
To counter Anti Radiation Missile(ARM) radars should be designed with
low side lobes and use decoy transmitters and blinking with in a radar
net.
Also use of bistatic and multi static radars can be considered although it
poses problems such as range determination, synchronisation, blind zones
doppler processing difficulties. Etc.

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Tracking Radars
Noise Jamming :- To counter noise jamming tracking radars employ the
following techniques :1.Use of higher transmission frequencies which results in sharp beams.
2. Longer target dwell times.
3. Tracking a noise jammer in angle from two spatially dispersed radars to
provide enough information to locate a target with sufficient accuracy for
use with a semi-active missile guidance system.
Deception Jamming:RGPO :- A primary ECCM defense against RGPO is the use of leading
edge range tracker. The assumption is that the deception jammer needs
time to react and that the leading edge of the return pulse will not be
covered by the jammer. Pulse Repetition Interval (PRI) jitter and
frequency agility both help to ensure that the jammer will not be able to
anticipate the radar pulse and lead the actual skin return.Alternatively the
tracking radar might employ a multi gate system in conjunction with

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a wide dynamic range receiver to simultaneously track both the skin and
false target returns. This approach utilises the fact that both the jamming
signal and the actual radar return come from the same angular direction so
that the radars angular tracking circuit is always locked on to the real
target.
Transponder type jammers do not replicate the linear response,
scintillation or doppler characteristics of actual targets and hence are easily
defeated by modest ECCM features.Repeater jammers have the potential
to closely an actual target and hence require the use of sophisticated
ECCM techniques. One method is to differentiate output of the range
tracker to obtain radial range rate or velocity data to check whether the
measured range rate exceeds that expected of real target. Coherent tracking
radars such as Pulse Doppler and CW radars compare radial-range velocity
derived from doppler measurements with that derived from differentiated
range data to check for any variation.It is also possible for coherent radars
to measure other target signatures, such as those induced by engine
modulation,to discriminate against false targets.

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The best defense against combined RGPO and VGPO jamming is to
employ multigate tracking in both range and doppler dimensions.
Angle Deception Jamming. Radars using lobe switching or conical
scanning hide the scan or lobe rate by transmitting an unmodulated beam
and inducing the angle error-sensing amplitude modulation only on the
receiving beam ( COSRO & LORO). It is difficult to completely hide the
scanning or lobing rate because of unintentional amplitude modulation
induced on the transmit beam due to scanning or lobing action of the
receiver beam.
Monopulse tracking radars which use parabolic reflector antennae are
susceptible to cross-polarisation jamming through condone lobes
generated by the reflector surface. A high degree of orthogonality will
counter cross polarisation jamming. Planar array antennae have a high
resistance to cross polarisation jamming. The theoretical effectiveness of
cross jamming is partially mitigated by the practical problems associated
with its implementation. In addition maximum effectiveness of the
technique implies a considerable delay( 100 ns) in the repeated signal

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Thus a leading edge or multigate tracking should be an effective ECCM
technique against crosseyed jamming