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An Enhanced Tropospheric Effects Compensation System Combining Tomographic and GPS Correction Techniques

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Missile Defense Agency
Contract: W9113M-04-C-0042
Agency Tracking Number: 02-0990
Amount: $1,901,130.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: BMDO02-003
Solicitation Number: 2002.1
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2002
Award Year: 2004
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2004-03-05
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2007-11-04
Small Business Information
1711 Indian Ridge Dr.
Woodstock, GA 30189
United States
DUNS: 015991545
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Susan Dugas
 Senior Engineer
 (770) 617-9082
 susan@pra-corp.com
Business Contact
 E. Holder
Title: President
Phone: (770) 528-7752
Email: jeff@pra-corp.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Propagation Research Associates (PRA) proposes an innovative system that will correct angle-of-arrival error for radars tracking long range, low elevation targets. The correction improvement will be an order of magnitude improvement over existing model based measurements and will extend time-lines for Ballistic Missile Defense radars. The proposed Enhanced Tropospheric Effects Compensation (ETEC) System uses GPS Doppler Correction and 3-D Refractivity Field to estimate angle-of-arrival error for low elevation radar signals due to tropospheric bending error. A 3-D Turbulence Field will be developed to determine the turbulence structure to mitigate the effects of turbulence and will significantly improve detection and target measurement characteristics for low elevation targets. In Phase I PRA demonstrated the feasibility of the GPS Data Correction technique to estimate bending error and establish a system error budget. The technique uses Doppler measurements from GPS signals compared with estimated true Doppler measurements based on a priori knowledge of the position of occulting GPS satellites. Also, PRA developed the Ray-Tracing Tomographic Refractivity and Turbulence Inversion Techniques that use GPS bending error estimates to create real-time refractivity and turbulence structure profiles. These profiles will be integrated into existing 3-dimensional mesoscale models of the troposphere to develop a real-time 3-D Refractivity and Turbulence Fields in Phase II.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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