Influence Analysis of Atmospheric Refraction on Low-angle Radar Tracking Errors

In this paper, based on the principle theory of angle tracking and the deterministic propagation modeling, a method of predicting the errors in the measured elevation angle is presented, which adopt the effective earth's radius to represent the atmospheric refraction effects. The errors of elevation angle are simulated in different refraction environments. The results of the study prove that the change of atmospheric refraction can affect the errors of elevation angle notablely associated with the multipath effects, indicating the atmospheric refraction is a key factor to be considered in low-angle tracking.