Self-calibration of stacked beam radar

A stacked beam radar system including a transmitter and multi-channel receiver having amplification over a predetermined input signal amplitude range, wherein amplified received radar target signals are compared to a stored amplified calibrated value to permit accurate measurement of relative target amplitude in each channel, which system comprises:

• stacked beam transmitting means for transmitting a signal towards a target;
• multi-channel receiver means for receiving target reflected signals including means for amplifying said target reflected signals;
• means for generating a sequence of reference signals each having a predetermined amplitude;
• means for coupling the sequence of reference signals to the input of respective channels of the receiver;
• means for sensing calibrated output reference signals of the receiver fed from the input reference signals;
• means for storing the calibrated output reference signals indicative of amplitude along with corresponding input reference signals to provide a table of receiver reference input signals and calibrated output reference signals over the dynamic range of the receiver;
• means for looking up and comparing the amplified output received signals produced by an unknown amplitude target signal input to the receiver with stored calibrated output reference signals, and selecting the corresponding known reference signal which produced the calibrated output reference signal which most closely matches the amplified output received signals, and using said corresponding known reference signal as an indication of the amplitude of the unknown reflected receiver input signal.