Design and performance of the monopulse control system

Ka-band (32 GHz) monopulse tracking has been chosen for the upcoming NASA m issions. This decision requires an increased pointing accuracy for the Deep Space Network antenna servo systems that can be maintained in a noisy envi ronment. The noise sources include wind gusts, encoder imperfections, and r eceiver noise. This article describes the selection of the position and mon opulse controllers for the improved tracking accuracy, and presents the res ults of linear and non-linear simulations to confirm that servo performance will meet the requirements.