FREQUENCY AGILITY

Radar Glossary

Radar — Frequency Agility

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Information on Frequency Agility

Frequency agility refers to the radar's ability to rapidly change its operating frequency in a pseudo-random fashion to maintain a narrow instantaneous bandwidth over a wide operating bandwidth.
     Frequency agility forces the jamming effort to spread its power over the operating bandwidth of the radar (even through the radar is only using a very narrow instantaneous bandwidth at
     any one point in time). Frequency agility reduces jammer to signal ratio and reduces, therefore, the effectiveness of the jamming effort.
     Without agility, the jammer concentrates all of its power into the radar bandwidth. Frequency agility forces this power to be spread over the operating bandwidth (diluting the effective jammer power getting into the radar).
     A more advanced form of frequency agility is called look-ahead electronic protection (EP). Rather than using a random approach to changing frequency, look-ahead agility selects the next operating frequency and checks to see that it is clear of jamming. If it is clear, that frequency is used. If not, another selection and check is be made. Look-ahead agility further complicates the jammer's task.


Other topics in our resources on Radar related to Frequency Agility include: 
 
  • frequency diversity
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  • electronic protection (EP)

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