Conversion of a Manually Operated Antenna to a Digital Auto-Tracking Antenna System,

摘要

A systematic approach has been made to the design of a digital auto-tracking antenna system. When such a system is converted from a manual tracking system,the main design criteria of accuracy,reliability,ease of maintenance,and minimum cost are advanced if the new system is designed around one of the present modes of operation,thus minimizing new equipment and permitting the existing modes still to be used when desirable. In the example of this report azimuth and elevation information for two antennas is stored on Mylar tape in binary form. The tape is read by a controller,which reformats and transmits the digital data at specific time intervals to a digital-to-synchro converter for each antenna. The converter outputs syncro position data through the previously existing manual command unit to the pedestal drive circuitry in a servo control loop,also previously existing. (Author)