14.1 Introduction

There are several well-known aids to calculation of surveillance radar performance. Blake's Worksheet [1] uses a pre-computer iterative pencil and paper approach. The CARPET [2] program runs on a PC. Both are slanted towards military and aviation applications and are not particularly straightforward to apply to civil marine problems.

To assist readers to compute the performance of their own systems, this chapter outlines a new family of spreadsheets for point passive, point active and extended passive targets, respectively. The spreadsheets themselves may be downloaded from the IEE Website (www.iee.org). Examples of the use of spreadsheets and their charts are included in Chapter 15. In this explanatory chapter, we assume basic familiarity with Microsoft Works spreadsheet operation as well as the earlier chapters of this book. No programming skill is required; the user merely inserts the relevant system parameters and follows simple drills set out below. Results are presented numerically and can be charted (graphed) to several alternative bases.

The spreadsheets have uniform format. The first page (p1) contains cells in which the user enters details of the current task, date and so forth, followed by all necessary transceiver, scanner, environmental and target parameters, and minimum and maximum ranges of interest. Cells in this page display computed performance parameters of most frequent interest, including horizon range and probability of detection at two spot user-chosen ranges. Often p1 will provide all the information required, and is configured...