TOWARDS A NEW TRACKING ARCHITECTURE

Abstract

A telemetry facility may connect numerous telemetry receivers to a single tracking antenna depending on the number of TM channels involved in the test and on the required redundancy. The tracking data, i.e. AM normalized analog signals extracted by the receivers from the TM signal and the AGC analog signals, are sent to the Antenna Control Unit (ACU) for tracking error calculation. The number of cables between receivers and ACU becomes important in some telemetry facilities and the tracking signals being analog, the distance must be limited. This paper proposes a new tracking architecture that moves from analog to digital links between receivers and ACU with the following main benefits:  Keeping the capability to acquire tracking data (AM&AGC) from several telemetry receivers,  Having more flexibility for integration,  Improving interoperability,  Providing availability of simultaneous tracking errors for enhanced tracking algorithms, for C-band tracking improvement for example.