Design and performance of the monopulse control system

Abstract

Ka-band (32 GHz) monopulse tracking has been chosen for the upcoming NASA missions. This decision requires an increased pointing accuracy for the Deep Space Network antenna servo systems that can be maintained in a noisy environment. The noise sources include wind gusts, encoder imperfections, and receiver noise. This article describes the selection of the position and monopulse controllers for the improved tracking accuracy, and presents the results of linear and non-linear simulations to confirm that servo performance will meet the requirements.