Transient response of a heterodyne receiver : implications for a time-of-arrival system

T. F. Burke

ResearchPublished 1979

A directional antenna is a filter whose response varies with direction. A modulated signal transmitted from such an antenna produces different far-field waveforms in all directions (except for possible symmetry). The response of a receiver to the transmission will vary with position in the antenna pattern of the emitter. This effect is ordinarily negligible but it could limit the ultimate performance of any system that accepts off-axis signals and relies upon the details of waveform. In a leading-edge time-of-arrival (TOA) system used to determine the location of a pulsed emitter, the several receivers necessarily lie at different angular positions from the emitter. This analysis indicates that in a simple, idealized TOA system that would otherwise be entirely free from error, the waveform effect arising from a directional emitter can lead to errors of several dozen meters in the computed location.

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Burke, T. F., Transient response of a heterodyne receiver : implications for a time-of-arrival system. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1979. https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R2418.html.
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