A New Approach for an Old Problem: Testing Secondary Surveillance Radar

ABSTRACT: Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) has been around since World War II, based on the military’s “identification friend or foe” radar system. While the radar systems have evolved, many of the test challenges have remained constant. Whether designing, characterizing, installing, maintaining or troubleshooting an SSR, one may have different requirements for testing the RF transmission. As a result, different instrumentation is often used, based on the task, or the same equipment is used throughout, requiring users to accept compromises. The former leads to higher equipment cost, the latter inefficiency and lower productivity. This article describes a new approach to these test challenges, where the same test equipment can be used without the compromises.