Multi-beam phased array radar array plane control method

Abstract

The invention particularly relates to a multi-beam phased array radar array plane control method, which comprises the following steps that a radar array plane is initialized after a first state machine is electrified, a timing module generates a first reset signal based on wavefront pulse to reset the first state machine, and a second reset signal is generated by dynamic delay to reset a second state machine and a third state machine; the first state machine loads the beam address and the forming data in parallel, completes beam storage mapping and automatically resets the address; the second state machine dynamically selects a reset strategy to realize time sequence connection, and beam switching is synchronized through a handshake protocol; a third state machine monitors a time sequence signal in real time and triggers protection when the time sequence signal exceeds a threshold value; the system circularly executes resetting, wave beam presetting, time sequence switching and thermal monitoring processes, adaptively adjusts parameters, and automatically cuts off a transmission time sequence when abnormity occurs. Through cooperative control of the multi-state machine, high-precision and high-reliability multi-beam dynamic management is realized, any number of beams, time sequence configuration and pulse repetition frequency are supported, and the flexibility and stability of a radar system are improved.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present application relates to the technical field of radar control, in particular to a multi-beam phased array radar array control method, which is suitable for phased array radar systems that require high-precision beam control and rapid beam switching. BACKGROUND

[0002] The core advantage of phased array radar is that it can form multiple transmit and receive beams in a single pulse repetition interval through the beam synthesis of multiple electromagnetic wave transmitting and receiving units. Currently, the implementation of transmitting multiple beams mainly relies on beam steering combined with time division multiplexing technology or sub-aperture division method, while receiving multiple beams is mainly realized based on digital subarray level beam forming (DBF).

[0003] In the traditional phased array radar array control scheme, a wavefront pulse combined with a timer is usually used to generate various trigger signals, and the corresponding control operations are realized through the sequential triggering of these trigger signals. However, with the increasing softwareization of the array, the traditional method shows limitations in scenarios such as any number of beams, any beam timing, variable configuration rate, and seamless configuration of front and back timing. These technical bottlenecks are mainly due to the high coupling characteristics of beam switching and timing generation in the time dimension in the traditional scheme. The control logic becomes complex as the number of beams increases, resulting in a significant decrease in system efficiency. The control accuracy of beam switching timing is difficult to meet the requirements of high-performance applications. The system reliability guarantee mechanism is not perfect, and there is a lack of effective timing monitoring and protection functions. The parameter configuration flexibility is insufficient, making it difficult to adapt to the diverse needs of working modes.

[0004] The above problems restrict the performance of the radar array in application scenarios such as multi-target tracking and rapid scanning, making it difficult to meet the requirements of modern phased array radars for high-flexibility, high-precision, and scalable array multi-beam control methods.

[0005] It should be noted that the information disclosed in the above background section is only used to strengthen the understanding of the background of the present application, and therefore can include information that does not constitute prior art known to those of ordinary skill in the art. SUMMARY

[0006] The present application provides a multi-beam phased array radar array control method to solve one or more defects in the prior art.

[0007] Other characteristics and advantages of the present application will become apparent from the following detailed description, or will be learned by practice of the present application.

[0008] According to a first aspect of the present application, a multi-beam phased array radar array control method is provided, the method comprising: S1: The first state machine enables the first sub-state machine after the system is powered on, initializes the configuration of the radar array, and enters a standby state after completion; the timing module detects the rising edge of the wavefront pulse in real time, generates a first reset signal to reset the first state machine, and performs dynamic delay processing on the first reset signal to generate a second reset signal for resetting the second state machine and the third state machine; S2: The first state machine loads the beam address and the shaping data in parallel, outputs the data clock through a two-select gate, and completes the beam storage mapping in a cycle; after the storage process is completed, the beam address is automatically reset to the first address, and the beam switching instruction is waited for; S3: The second state machine dynamically selects a reset strategy according to the current timing state, realizes the timing connection of adjacent pulse repetition intervals (PRIs), simultaneously generates a timing signal synchronized with the radar pulse repetition interval to drive the array to work, and realizes the synchronization control of beam switching and timing through a handshake protocol of request-response-setting; S4: The third state machine monitors the pulse width and duty cycle parameters of the timing signal generated by the second state machine in real time, updates the monitoring data in each pulse repetition interval cycle, and triggers a protection signal when the monitoring parameters exceed the preset threshold; S5: The state machine reset, beam preset, timing switching and thermal monitoring processes are executed in a cycle to realize the dynamic control of multiple beams, and the configuration rate, dynamic delay amount and thermal protection threshold are adaptively adjusted according to the actual working state, and the transmission timing is automatically cut off in an abnormal case.

[0009] In some example embodiments, in S1, the wavefront pulse is ahead of the PRI by an amount determined according to the beam preset window length; and the number of clock cycles of the dynamic delay of the second reset signal is determined by a timing adjustment variable.

[0010] In some example embodiments, the beam preset window length is equal to the product of the number of transmission beams and the sampling clock cycles required for single beam preset; and the timing adjustment variable is a configurable parameter for aligning the system timing with the radar pulse repetition interval.

[0011] In some example embodiments, in S1, the first state machine enables the first sub-state machine after the system is powered on, and performs the following operations: sends the initialization configuration instruction of the radar array into the first sub-state machine; enables the first sub-state machine to complete the initialization of the array.

[0012] In some example embodiments, in S2, the first state machine loads the beam address and the shaping data in parallel, and performs the following operations: sends the beam storage address into the first sub-state machine; sends the shaping data into the second sub-state machine; The first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine are enabled at the same time to realize beam storage mapping.

[0013] In some example embodiments, the data clock is output through the two-input one-output switch, specifically: During the beam storage mapping, the first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine generate configuration clock and data clock respectively, and the data clock is selected and output through the two-input one-output switch to optimize the efficiency of beam preset time.

[0014] In some example embodiments, in S3, the dynamic selection of the reset strategy includes: If the current is in the transmission timing, the second state machine resets the timing to the load timing; If the current is not in the transmission timing and there is no transmission timing requirement in the future, the existing timing is kept unchanged; If the current is not in the transmission timing but needs to be in the transmission timing in the future, the timing is reset to the load timing.

[0015] In some example embodiments, in S3, the handshake protocol includes: The second state machine sends a beam switching request signal to the first state machine to inform the first state machine that the beam can be switched; the first state machine generates a beam setting signal after detecting the beam switching request signal, completes the beam switching, and returns an acknowledgement signal to confirm the beam ready state.

[0016] In some example embodiments, in S3, the monitoring parameter exceeds the preset threshold, specifically: If the transmission observation count value exceeds the preset time threshold or the transmission / reception observation time ratio exceeds the preset ratio threshold.

[0017] In some example embodiments, when the protection signal takes effect, the timing signal output is forcibly cut off, and the radar array is forced into the load state.

[0018] Compared with the prior art, the multi-beam phased array radar array control method provided by the embodiments of the application has the beneficial effects that: the beam switching function and the timing generation function of the multi-beam control are decoupled and executed by two state machines respectively, the degree of freedom and flexibility of the multi-beam control are improved; the dynamic delay reset strategy and the state machine cooperative control are adopted to ensure that the beam preset, the timing generation and the radar pulse repetition interval are strictly synchronized; the timing adjustment variable can be dynamically configured to support timing alignment under any pulse repetition frequency and adapt to complex application scenarios; and reliable thermal protection and fault tolerance are provided by real-time observation of the output timing.

[0019] It should be understood that the above general description and the following detailed description are only exemplary and explanatory, and cannot limit the application. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0020] The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and constitute part of the specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the present application and, together with the description, further serve to explain the principles of the application. It is to be understood that the drawings are only schematic, and that they do not necessarily bear a relationship to the scale of the application, and they should not be regarded as limiting the scope of the application.

[0021] Figure 1 A flowchart of a multi-beam phased array radar array control method; Figure 2 A functional diagram of a multi-beam phased array radar array control method. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0022] Example implementations will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Example implementations may, however, be implemented in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the implementations set forth herein; rather, these implementations are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the example implementations to those skilled in the art. The described features, structures, or characteristics can be combined in one or more implementations.

[0023] In addition, the drawings are only schematic and the dimensions of the various layers are not necessarily to scale with respect to one another. Like numbers refer to like or similar features throughout the drawings, and any repeated description of those features can be omitted for the sake of brevity. Some of the blocks in the drawings can be functional blocks that do not necessarily have a corresponding structure directly in the implementation. These functional blocks can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination thereof. In some embodiments, the functional blocks can be implemented in one or more hardware modules or integrated circuits, or in different network and / or processor devices and / or microcontroller devices.

[0024] In view of the shortcomings and deficiencies of the prior art, a multi-beam phased array radar array control method is provided in the example implementation. Referring to Figure 1 The method can specifically include the following steps: S1: the first state machine enables the first sub-state machine after the system is powered on, initializes and configures the radar array, and enters a standby state after completion; the timing module detects the rising edge of the wavefront pulse in real time, generates a first reset signal to reset the first state machine, and performs dynamic delay processing on the first reset signal to generate a second reset signal for resetting the second state machine and the third state machine; S2: the first state machine loads the beam address and the weighting data in parallel, outputs the data clock through the two-select gate, and completes the beam storage mapping in a loop; after the storage process is completed, the beam address is automatically reset to the first address, and the beam switching instruction is waited for; S3: The second state machine dynamically selects a reset strategy according to a current timing state, realizes timing connection of adjacent pulse repetition intervals (PRI), generates a timing signal synchronized with the radar pulse repetition interval to drive the array surface to work, and realizes synchronization control of beam switching and timing through a handshake protocol of request-response-setting; S4: The third state machine monitors pulse width and duty cycle parameters of the timing signal generated by the second state machine in real time, updates the monitoring data in each pulse repetition interval period, and triggers a protection signal when the monitoring parameters exceed a preset threshold; S5: The system cyclically executes state machine reset, beam preset, timing switching and thermal monitoring processes, realizes dynamic control of multiple beams, and adaptively adjusts configuration rates, dynamic delay amounts and thermal protection thresholds according to actual working states, and automatically cuts off the transmission timing in abnormal conditions.

[0025] In S1, the wavefront pulse is ahead of the PRI, and the advance amount is determined according to the beam preset window length; the number of dynamic delay clock cycles of the second reset signal is determined by the timing adjustment variable; The first state machine is directly triggered by the first reset signal to ensure synchronization of beam storage mapping and system timing; the second reset signal synchronously resets the second state machine and the third state machine to realize cooperation of timing control and protection functions.

[0026] The beam preset window length is equal to the product of the number of transmission beams and the number of sampling clock cycles required for single beam preset; the timing adjustment variable is a configurable parameter for aligning the system timing with the radar pulse repetition interval.

[0027] The number of clock cycles required for single beam preset is jointly determined by the following factors: The data clock generated by the first and second sub-state machines and the system configuration clock rate; The number of data bits required for transmission by each control line in the TR component of the radar array to preset a beam.

[0028] In S1, after the first state machine is powered on and reset, it enters an initial state to enable the first sub-state machine, and performs the following operations: Send the initialization configuration instruction of the radar array to the first sub-state machine; Enable the first sub-state machine to complete array initialization.

[0029] In S2, when the first state machine is reset by the first reset signal, the beam address and the shaping data are loaded in parallel, and the following operations are performed: Send the beam storage address to the first sub-state machine; Send the shaping data to the second sub-state machine; Enable the first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine at the same time to realize beam storage mapping.

[0030] During beam storage mapping, the first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine generate the configuration clock and the data clock, respectively. The output data clock is selected by a two-to-one selector to optimize the beam preset time efficiency.

[0031] In S3, the dynamic selection reset strategy includes: If the current state is in the transmit sequence, the second state machine will reset the sequence to the load sequence; If there is no current launch timing and no subsequent launch timing requirement, then the existing timing will remain unchanged. If the current timing is not in the transmit timing sequence but a transmit timing sequence is required later, the timing sequence will be reset to the load timing sequence.

[0032] In S3, the handshake protocol includes: The second state machine sends a beam switching request signal to the first state machine, notifying the first state machine that the beam can be switched; after detecting the beam switching request signal, the first state machine generates a beam setting signal, completes the beam switching, and returns an acknowledgment signal to confirm the beam ready state.

[0033] In S4, the third state machine observes the timing signal generated by the second state machine in real time. If the transmit observation count value exceeds the preset time threshold or the transmit / receive observation time ratio exceeds the preset ratio threshold, the third state machine will trigger the protection signal; otherwise, the third state machine will clear the protection signal.

[0034] When the protection signal is activated, the timing signal output will be forcibly cut off, causing the radar array to enter a load state.

[0035] The method cyclically receives wavefront pulses and generates a first reset signal and a second reset signal for each wavefront pulse. It cyclically resets each state machine and executes beam preset, timing switching, and thermal monitoring processes to complete multi-beam control.

[0036] During reset, the operating parameters include, but are not limited to: the number of transmit beams, the number of preset clock cycles per beam, and timing adjustment components. These parameters can be dynamically configured according to control commands, supporting multi-beam control requirements with arbitrary number of beams, arbitrary timing start and end times, and arbitrary pulse repetition frequencies.

[0037] The method of the present invention is further illustrated below through specific embodiments: As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, refer to Figure 2 The step S1, in which the timing module detects the rising edge of the wavefront pulse to generate a first reset signal and a second reset signal, includes the following specific steps: The wavefront pulse is ahead of the radar PRI signal. Each sampling clock cycle is used as the beam preset window, where, , the number of transmit beams, the number of clock cycles required for presetting a beam, which is related to the data clock generated by the first and second sub-state machines and the configuration clock rate, when the rate is 10 MHz, when the rate is 20 MHz, The wavefront pulse obtains a reference signal of one clock cycle as the first reset signal after passing through the rising edge detection circuit; the first reset signal generates the second reset signal after a programmable clock cycle delay, and the length of the clock cycle delay is determined by the timing adjustment variable , wherein, , is the delay of the rising edge detection circuit, is the timing adjustment component, which needs to be adjusted so that the timing alignment radar PRI generated by the method is, .

[0038] The first reset signal is connected to the synchronous reset end of the first state machine and is directly triggered by the rising edge of the wavefront pulse, ensuring that the beam storage mapping is strictly aligned with the timing of the radar system. The second reset signal simultaneously resets the second and third state machines, realizing the cooperative start of timing control and timing protection.

[0039] The step S2 of parallel loading of the beam address and the beamforming data by the first state machine includes the following specific steps: The first state machine can enter the initial state after power-on reset or reset by the first reset signal. If the first state machine enters the initial state after power-on reset, the first state machine initializes the radio frequency multifunctional chip in the configuration array by enabling the first sub-state machine to generate the configuration clock, the configuration data and the configuration valid signal, wherein the configuration clock needs to be output through a two-to-one selector, and the first state machine enters the standby state after the initialization of the configuration is completed. If the first state machine enters the initial state after reset by the first reset signal, the above configuration process is skipped, and the storage address of one beam is sent to the first sub-state machine, and the beamforming data is sent to the second sub-state machine, and the first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine are enabled at the same time. The above operation generates the configuration clock, the configuration data, the configuration valid signal, the data clock, the multi-channel data and the data valid signal to realize the beam storage mapping, wherein the data clock and the configuration clock are output through a two-to-one selector, and the configuration data and the beam data are transmitted at the same time to reduce the time cost of beam presetting. The above steps complete the presetting of one beam, and the first state machine judges the number of transmit beams and repeatedly performs the above steps to complete the presetting of the required transmit beams in this embodiment.

[0040] After all the beams are preset, the first state machine sets the beam address to the storage address of the first beam by enabling the first sub-state machine, and then the first state machine waits for the beam switching request handshake signal sent by the second state machine.

[0041] The step S3 of judging the current timing state by the second state machine to dynamically select the reset strategy comprises the following specific steps: Considering various arbitrary or unexpected situations, the second reset signal appears at a random time, so the second state machine needs to judge the current timing state to handle the timing connection problem. If the current timing state is the transmission timing state, the second state machine resets the timing state to the load timing state. If the current timing state is not the transmission timing state and there is no transmission timing state in the future, the second state machine resets the timing state to the existing timing state, which has the beneficial effect of supporting multiple PRIs in the continuous reception beam without interrupting this application scenario. If the current timing state is not the transmission timing state and there is a transmission timing state in the future, the second state machine resets the timing state to the load timing state.

[0042] The step S3 of generating a timing signal aligned with the radar PRI by the second state machine, driving the array, and initiating the beam switching handshake protocol comprises the following specific steps: After the second state machine is reset synchronously by the second reset signal, it enters the initial state, and sequentially resets the beam switching 1us counter, the transmission-to-reception switching time counter, the reception-to-transmission switching time counter, the transmission setup time counter, the beam duration time counter, and the transmission start time counter.

[0043] After the timing connection is handled, the second state machine outputs a beam switching request handshake signal to inform the first state machine that the beam can be switched. The first state machine detects the beam switching handshake request signal, generates a beam setting signal to realize beam generation, and returns a beam control response signal to the second state machine to inform the second state machine that the beam is ready.

[0044] Further, the second state machine executes the reception-to-transmission switching time counter and the transmission setup time counter, wherein the reception-to-transmission switching time counter is used to provide a protection time in the load state between transmission and reception, and the transmission setup time counter provides the response time of the switching state of the power modulator, solid-state PIN switch, and other hardware in the phased array radar array. In this embodiment, the reception-to-transmission switching time counter of the second state machine is 0.5us, and the transmission setup time counter is 0.5us. The second state machine generates a timing signal aligned with the radar PRI time, and if there is a time deviation, the deviation is compensated by adjusting the timing adjustment variable .

[0045] The method judges the number of transmission beams. If the number of transmission beams is 0, the first state machine generates a reception beam or generates a reception beam through digital beam forming, and the second state machine generates a reception timing. If the number of transmission beams is not 0, the first state machine generates a transmission beam first, and the second state machine generates a transmission timing. The second state machine determines the beam duration time by executing the beam duration time counter.

[0046] The first state machine and the second state machine determine the number of the transmit beams and repeat the above steps to complete the generation of the required beam timing.

[0047] When the last transmit beam ends, the second state machine eliminates the tailing effect of the transmit timing by executing the transmit-to-receive switching time counter, and then generates the receive timing.

[0048] The step S4 of resetting the state machines and executing the beam presetting, timing switching and thermal monitoring process to complete the multi-beam control comprises the following specific steps: The embodiment detects whether the duration width and the duty cycle of the transmit beam exceed the safety threshold to avoid the catastrophic error caused by the abnormal clock / timing signal and the fire control instruction. Specifically, the timing signal generated by the second state machine is not directly output to the TR chip of the radar array, but is first observed by the third state machine. When the third state machine is reset each time, the transmit observation count value and the transmit / receive observation time ratio count value will contain the timing observation results of the last radar PRI. If the transmit observation count value is greater than a certain set time value or the transmit / receive observation time ratio count value is greater than a certain set ratio value, the third state machine will trigger a protection signal; if both are less than the set ratio value, the third state machine will clear the protection signal. The protection signal can switch the timing signal and make the phased array radar array forced to be in the load state.

[0049] The method repeatedly receives the wavefront pulses and generates the first reset signal and the second reset signal of each wavefront pulse, and resets the state machines and executes the beam presetting, timing switching and thermal monitoring process to complete the multi-beam control. When being reset, the method dynamically adjusts the working parameters such as the number of the transmit beams , the number of clock cycles required for presetting a beam , the timing adjustment component , etc. according to the instructions to meet the needs of the multi-beam control of any beam number, any timing start / end time and any PRF.

[0050] In addition, the above figures are only schematic illustrations of the processes included in the method according to the exemplary embodiment of the present application, and are not for limiting purposes. It is easy to understand that the processes shown in the above figures do not indicate or limit the time sequence of these processes. In addition, it is also easy to understand that these processes can be executed synchronously or asynchronously, for example, in multiple modules.

[0051] Other embodiments of the application will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the application disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the application being indicated by the following claims.

[0052] It is to be understood that the application is not limited to the precise construction herein described and as shown in the attached drawings, and that various modifications and changes can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the application. The scope of the application is to be indicated by the appended claims, rather than the description.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a multi-beam phased array radar array, characterized in that, The method comprises: S1: the first state machine enables the first sub-state machine after system power-on, initializes the configuration of the radar array, and enters a standby state after completion; the timing module detects the rising edge of the wavefront pulse in real time, generates a first reset signal to reset the first state machine, and performs dynamic delay processing on the first reset signal to generate a second reset signal for resetting the second state machine and the third state machine; S2: the first state machine loads the beam address and the shaping data in parallel, outputs the data clock through a two-to-one gate, and completes the beam storage mapping in cycles; after the storage process is completed, the beam address is automatically reset to the first address, and the beam switching instruction is waited for; S3: the second state machine dynamically selects a reset strategy according to the current timing state, realizes the timing connection of adjacent pulse repetition intervals (PRIs), simultaneously generates a timing signal synchronized with the radar pulse repetition interval to drive the array to work, and realizes the synchronization control of beam switching and timing through a handshake protocol of request-response-setting; S4: the third state machine monitors the pulse width and duty cycle parameters of the timing signal generated by the second state machine in real time, updates the monitoring data in each pulse repetition interval cycle, and triggers a protection signal when the monitoring parameters exceed the preset threshold; S5: the state machine reset, beam preset, timing switching and thermal monitoring processes are cyclically executed, the dynamic control of multiple beams is realized, and the configuration rate, dynamic delay amount and thermal protection threshold are adaptively adjusted according to the actual working state, and the transmission timing is automatically cut off in the abnormal case.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, In S1, the wavefront pulse is ahead of the PRI, and the advance amount is determined according to the beam preset window length; the dynamic delay clock cycle number of the second reset signal is determined by a timing adjustment variable.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein, The beam preset window length is equal to the product of the number of transmission beams and the sampling clock cycle required for single beam preset; the timing adjustment variable is a configurable parameter for aligning the system timing with the radar pulse repetition interval.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein, In S1, the first state machine enables the first sub-state machine after system power-on, and performs the following operations: send the initialization configuration instruction of the radar array into the first sub-state machine; enable the first sub-state machine to complete the array initialization.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein, In S2, the first state machine loads the beam address and the shaping data in parallel, and performs the following operations: send the beam storage address into the first sub-state machine; send the shaping data into the second sub-state machine; enable the first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine at the same time to realize the beam storage mapping.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein, The data clock is outputted through the two-to-one gate, specifically: During the beam storage mapping, the first sub-state machine and the second sub-state machine generate configuration clock and data clock respectively, and the data clock is selected and outputted through the two-to-one gate to optimize the beam preset time efficiency.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein, In S3, the dynamic reset strategy includes: if the current is in the transmission timing, the second state machine resets the timing to the load timing; if the current is not in the transmission timing and there is no subsequent transmission timing requirement, the existing timing is kept unchanged; if the current is not in the transmission timing but subsequent transmission timing is required, the timing is reset to the load timing.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein, In S3, the handshake protocol includes: The second state machine sends a beam switching request signal to the first state machine to inform the first state machine that the beam can be switched; the first state machine generates a beam setting signal after detecting the beam switching request signal, completes the beam switching, and returns an acknowledgement signal to confirm the beam ready state.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein, In S3, the monitoring parameter exceeds a preset threshold, specifically: If the transmission observation count value exceeds a preset time threshold or the transmission / reception observation time ratio exceeds a preset ratio threshold.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein, When the protection signal takes effect, the timing signal output will be forcibly cut off, and the radar array surface will enter the load state.

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