Algorithm for Precise Altitude Estimation in FMCW Radar

Navigation sensors are indispensable for spacecraft as they provide vital data used by the NGC (Navigation Guidance Control) system to guide the spacecraft towards the intended landing site. Among these sensors, the radar altimeter is widely used for altitude information during the landing phase. Nevertheless, accurately determining altitude over different terrains poses a challenge. To overcome this, paper proposes a methodology that utilizes moving average filtering in the frequency domain to reduce noise and enhance the precision of altitude estimation. The proposed algorithm has been implemented over a linear FMCW coherent radar system [1] and has been validated through experiments conducted on helicopter platform, covering a wide altitude range.