Virtual Antenna Array Vertical Sounding Radar Concept for Solving Super-Resolution Problems

Due to the significant increase in the density of traffic flows, especially air ones, technologies of high-precision spatial determination of air objects are increasingly being introduced into ground-based radio engineering transport control systems. The article presents the synthesis and formation of the required directivity diagram of a small aperture antenna array of a vertical sounding radar (VS radar). The task of increasing the accuracy of measuring the angular coordinates of air objects and implementing super-resolution in a VS radar with a small-element antenna array requires solving serious problems associated, first of all, with the formation of the amplitude-phase distribution of the probing signal on the physical elements of the small-element antenna array in conjunction with virtual antenna elements, provided that the energy potential and signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver output are sufficient under conditions of a small antenna aperture and pulse power of the probing signal. The use of VS radar data as part of surveillance radars will ensure the overlap of the blind zone of the dead funnel of the surveillance radar, and thus form a continuous radar field in the upper hemisphere of space.