Spike enable circuit

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The proposed spike enable circuit allows the radar system so equipped to operate in an environment containing large clutter and interfering signal pulses without a large false alarm rate due to the effects of such large clutter or signal returns.
In the radar system of the invention, a spike enable circuit is provided in combination with a conventional side-lobe blanking system and a moving target indicator system that operates to eliminate the substantial increase in false target reports that occurs at the output of conventional side-lobe blanking and moving target indicator systems.
In order to provide a relatively low false target rate, the spike enable circuit includes a fast time constant circuit responsive to the auxiliary channel signal and which may be in combination with a threshold circuit.
The spike enable circuit operates in parallel with the conventional comparison network of a side-lobe blanking system.
In accordance with the principles of the invention the auxiliary antenna may be selected with an odd pattern symmetry such as a difference pattern to provide a substantial reduction of the clutter return on the auxiliary channel.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a radar receiver system that allows blanking of interfering signals while reliably processing target return signals in a high clutter environment.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved radar system utilizing side-lobe blanking in combination with a moving target indicator that will operate at a relatively low false target rate.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a moving target indicator system in combination with a side-lobe blanking system that, with a minimum of additional hardward, substantially eliminates false target reports conventionally caused by the side-lobe blanking action in high clutter environments.
Another further object of this invention is to blank pulse interference that arrives by way of the main antenna side-lobes that is smaller on the side-lobe suppression channel than the clutter signal appearing on the main radar channel