Flight Experiment for Calibrating the Bias Errors of a Height Finding Radar Using Off-line Kinematic GPS

Sakae Nagaoka, Osamu Amai and Midori Sumiya

Abstract:	A laser tracking system has often been used for calibrating the measurement system of a radar, However, such a system, in general, is very complicated and expensive. Recent developments in GPS receiver techniques provide a useful and inexpensive tool for calibrating the measurement system of a radar. This paper deals with a flight experiment for calibrating the bias errors of the measurement system of a height finding radar. The radar, named the Navigation Accuracy Measurement System(NAMS), uses a vertically rotating fan beam antenna and estimates the height of an aircraft flying with a constant speed and altitude within the coverage area of the beam. A B99 aircraft equipped with GPS receivers was used to obtain GPS data on the aircratl position. GPS data obtained from the onboard receiver and from a reference station installed near the radar site were post processed using a kinematic positioning software package called Flykin. The aircraft positions obtained from the radar and kinematic GPS processing(KGPS) were compared and the biases of the radar were estimated with the least squares method. The paper proposes a method for estimating biases using KGPS data and gives brief examples of the results.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 54th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1998) June 1 - 3, 1998 The Adams Mark Hotel Denver, CO
Pages:	667 - 673
Cite this article:	Nagaoka, Sakae, Amai, Osamu, Sumiya, Midori, "Flight Experiment for Calibrating the Bias Errors of a Height Finding Radar Using Off-line Kinematic GPS," Proceedings of the 54th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1998), Denver, CO, June 1998, pp. 667-673.
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