Radar Polarization-Phase Method of Aircraft Roll Angle Determination

We propose a radar method for determining the roll angle of an aircraft using a passive beacon in the form of a radar polarization-anisotropic trihedral trihedral corner reflector (СR) with a triangular shape of reflecting edges and with horizontal intrinsic polarization. To determine the roll angle, the onboard radar uses probing pulsed radio signals with a linear plane of polarization coinciding with the transverse axis of the aircraft. Reception of reflected pulse radio signals from the passive beacon is carried out on board the aircraft in a circular polarization basis. Roll angle estimation is performed by one reflected radio pulse at the output of the UHF dual-channel receiver according to the measured phase difference between the orthogonally polarized left and right circular components of the received beacon signal.