R2021b

New Features, Bug Fixes

Radar Designer App: Plot vertical coverage diagrams

Starting this release, the Radar Designer app can plot vertical coverage diagrams. Vertical coverage diagrams, also known as range-height-angle charts or Blake charts, show the relationship between the range to a target, the height of the target, and the initial elevation angle of the transmitted rays for the sensor. This visualization enables users to understand the propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves through the Earth's atmosphere.

This release also introduces four functions related to Blake charts:

  • range2height computes the target height based on the initial elevation angle at the radar, the antenna height, and the propagated range.

  • height2range computes the propagated range based on the target height, the antenna height, and the elevation angle at the radar.

  • height2grndrange computes the ground range based on the target height, the antenna height, and the elevation angle at the radar.

  • refractionexp computes the refraction exponent, which is the decay constant of the Cosmic Ray Physics Laboratory (CRPL) exponential reference atmosphere model.

Synthetic Aperture Radar: Convert between ground range resolution and slant range resolution

This release introduces the grnd2slantrngres and slant2grndrngres functions.

  • grnd2slantrngres returns the slant range resolutions corresponding to a set of ground range resolutions and a set of grazing angles.

  • slant2grndrngres returns the ground range resolutions corresponding to a set of slant range resolutions and a set of grazing angles.

Radar Data Generator block: Generate radar data in Simulink

This release introduces the Radar Data Generator block. The block implements a statistical radar sensor model that generates synthetic data and provides the option to generate tracks, detections, and clustered detections. Radar Data Generator maintains the properties of the radarDataGenerator System object™.

New custom scan mode for radarDataGenerator

Starting this release, the radarDataGenerator System object has a custom scan mode that enables users to point the radar beam in a specific direction.

Merge detections into clustered detections using mergeDetections

Use the mergeDetections function to merge detections that share the same cluster labels into clustered detections. By default, the function uses a Gaussian mixture merging algorithm, but you can customize your own detection merging algorithm.

Generate more memory-efficient C/C++ code from tracking filters

These objects now support strict single-precision and static memory allocation code generation:

See the Extended Capabilities section on each object reference page for its code generation limitations.

Applications: AI, SAR, Tracking, Radar Coverage, Environment Effects

The release introduces several new application examples: