Digital redesign of analog search radar

This paper describes aspects of design, computational electronics hardware design, micro-controller and Personal Computer (PC) software for the realization of a replacement for a vacuum tube based Surface to Air Guided Weapons System Search Radar (SAGW). The redesigned digital radar system had to interface with 1970s vintage analog SAGW system. The redesigned system consists of a Human Machine Interface (HMI), an antenna following system to reference the radar `beam' with the rotating antenna and a digital timing system for timing the radar echo. The integration of an HMI running on a PC, an antenna follower consisting of an AC synchro and a magnetic encoder and a high speed micro-controller based device for timing the radar echo for calculation of target distance, forms the basis of a digital replacement for an analog vacuum tube based search radar.