HyperTrack™
Software Instruction
109
Quasonix, Inc.
•
Support for AM and AGC
interfaces
•
Automatic Diagnostics and Test
8.4
HyperTrack™ Advanced Features
The
elementary HyperTrack™ features listed above are important, but they are not unique to HyperTrack™
. Every
modern antenna controller supports these functions.
However, for customers with
Quasonix RDMS™ receivers, the antenna systems
described here can be complete
HyperTrack™ Ground Stations. The HyperTrack™ Ground Station consists of four major components:
•
A high-performance L/S-band Single Channel Monopulse (SCM) antenna
•
A FPGA-
based HyperTrack™ Antenna Controller
•
Ground Station Analyzer
•
A 3r
d Generation Quasonix RDMS™ receiver with HyperTrack™ enabled
The HyperTrack™ interface between the receiver and the antenna controller is a critical element in the
HyperTrack™ Ground Station. Quasonix published the HyperTrack™ antenna control protocol at
the International
Telemetering Conference (ITC) in 2019. Despite this, no other antenna vendor or receiver vendor has announced a
HyperTrack™ capability in their products. Without this Quasonix
-only feature, the advanced features described here
would be impossible.
The following sections describe the advanced features of the HyperTrack™ Ground Stations that are really “The
Portal to the Telemetry of Tomorrow.
” These are features that truly revolutionize auto
-tracking antenna systems, and
are only available
in a Quasonix HyperTrack™ Ground Station.
8.4.1
Interference Recognition
A conventional ACU accepts multiple receiver AGC voltages as inputs. The AGC voltages are used to control the
ACU’s automatic switching to the receiver with the highest signal level. Thereb
y it is always using the receiver with
the best signal for the AM signal used to track of the target.
Unfortunately, AGC is a very primitive measure of signal quality, and is not necessarily the best choice. It is
particularly misleading in the presence of interference. AGC responds only to signal strength. A strong interferer can
produce lots of signal strength. This leads to the antenna tracking loop “sticking” to the interfering signal and
abandoning the signal from the test article. Additionally, transient in-band signals not detectable in normal signal
strength measurements can severely impact the received data quality.
Starting in 2015, Quasonix introduced calibrated data quality metrics (DQM) in our 3rd Generation RDMS™
telemetry receivers. Recognizing the value of this feature, the Range Commanders Council adopted DQM as part of
IRIG 106-17, and the ability to generate and output DQM is now a requirement for all receivers being delivered to
DoD customers. DQM is a calibrated value, directly proportional to the log of the instantaneous bit error probability.
In effect, it reports the true data quality of the demodulated RF signal, even if it is randomized or encrypted; it is not
simply the RF signal strength. This difference is crucial.
Because DQM is a measure of the demodulated data quality, interference will drive the DQM value down, not up.
Recognizing this, the HyperTrack
™
Ground Station™ can detect the difference between interference and the signal
from the real target. Only a complete HyperTrack™
Ground Station offers this groundbreaking feature.
8.4.2
Intelligent Gain Control (IGC)
Every telemetry receiver uses automatic gain control (AGC) to ensure that the demodulator is driven at the “right”
level to recover the data from the modulated waveform. The
HyperTrack™ Antenna Controller (HTAC) extends this
