RF/microwave system high-fidelity modeling and simulation: application to airborne multi-channel receiver system for angle of arrival estimation

In this paper, a high-fidelity RF modeling and simulation framework is demonstrated to model an airborne multi-channel receiver system that is used to estimate the angle of arrival (AoA) of received signals from a stationary emitter. The framework is based on System Tool Kit (STK(R)), Matlab and SystemVue(R). The SystemVue-based multi-channel receiver estimates the AoA of incoming signals using adjacent channel amplitude and phase comparisons, and it estimates the Doppler frequency shift of the aircraft by processing the transmitted and received signals. The estimated AoA and Doppler frequency are compared with the ground-truth data provided by STK to validate the efficacy of the modeling process. Unlike other current RF electronic warfare simulation frameworks, the received signal described herein is formed using the received power, the propagation delay and the transmitted waveform, and does not require information such as Doppler frequency shift or radial velocity of the moving platform from the scenario; hence, the simulation is more computationally efficient. In addition, to further reduce the overall modeling and simulation time, since the high-fidelity model computation is costly, the high-fidelity electronic system model is evoked only when the received power is higher than a predetermined threshold.