Range Instrumentation Radars

The history of range instrumentation radars begins at the end of World War 11, with the SCR-584 radar. Since then, the use of instrumentation radars on ranges all over the globe has expanded greatly to gather metric performance data on aircraft, projectiles, missiles, and satellites. In this paper, key subsystem-level and system-level developments during the past decade are reviewed, including pulse-Doppler, digital range systems, calibration techniques, computer usage, and dualfrequency systems. Recently developed instrumentation radars from domestic and foreign sources are described as are three unique high-power large-aperture systems used for satellite and ballisticmissile measurements. The paper concludes by examining the likely requirements for instrumentation radars of the future.