TRACKING ANTENNA SYSTEMS PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

Abstract

About a half of a century ago, born of necessity created by World War II, automatic tracking techniques were developed. The first successful tracking system to go in production was the SCR 584 Radar developed for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in about 1942. Early tracking systems consisted of an antenna, a gimbal to support and position the antenna beam to track the target, a servo to control the movement of the gimbal, a control system for the operator to control the tracking, a transmitter to illuminate the target, and a receiver to receive the reflected signal from which the tracking error signal was extracted and sent to the servo. It is interesting to note that this description also fits today’s tracking systems. True -- telemetry signal tracking is passive and does not require the transmitter and true -some of the modern antennas do not require a gimballed support but the basic elements of the tracking system are still the same. However, over the last 50 years, there have been considerable changes and improvements in available materials, components, methods and technology. The scope of this paper is limited to the antenna and its progress in this changing technology. Presented herein is a brief history of tracking systems and discussion of the various tracking antennas developed over the years as well as the present tracking technology and that of the future.