STK Communications and STK Radar Plugin Points

Referencing Analysis Workbench components

Each of the Communications and Radar script plugin points can reference Analysis Workbench components, such as Vectors, Angles, Points, Custom Coordinate Systems, and Cal Scalars.

The general format of requesting an input from the Vector Geometry Tool is:

<scriptVariableName> = (‘ArgumentType’, ‘Input’, ‘Name’, ‘<awbComponentName>’, ‘Source’, ‘<pathOfAwbComponent>’, ‘Type’, ‘<typeOfAwbComponent>’);

where,

<scriptVariableName> is the desired variable name in the script.

<abwComponentName> is the name of the Analysis Workbench component.

<pathOfAwbComponent> is the path that identifies the STK entity that holds the Analysis Workbench component (could be an STK Object or an Access).

<typeOfAwbComponent> is Vector, Angle, Point, Plane, Axes, Scalar, or CrdnSys.

An example of a MATLAB script using AWB Calc Scalars follows.

SNR = ('ArgumentType','Input',...			
            'Name','SNR',...
	     'Source','access/Place-Place1-Radar-DecisionMetric-To-Aircraft-Aircraft'...	
            'Type','Scalar');	

In the above example, the scenario has an Awb Calc Scalar (‘Type’, ‘Scalar’) component called SNR (‘Name’, ‘SNR’). This AWB Calc Scalar is located on a computed Access where the computed Access is between a Radar, called Radar1, located on a Place called Place1, and an Aircraft called Aircraft1 ('Source','access/Place-Place1-Radar-Radar1-To-Aircraft-Aircraft1'). Finally, the value of the AWB Calc Scalar will be available to the script in a script variable called SNR.

For more information on referencing Analysis Workbench components in Communications and Radar plugin scripts, see Vector Geometry Tool Plugin Points.

Transmitter Model

Input Arguments

The Transmitter Model plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

PolType values and Polarization types

The correlation between the integer values of the PolType element and the different polarization types and their required parameters is given in the following table:

Receiver Model

Input arguments

The Receiver Model plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Custom Antenna Gain

Input arguments

The Custom Antenna Gain plugin point has the following available inputs:

The above angles are measured from the boresight of the antenna and are in the antenna Polar Coordinate System used by STK.

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Absorption Loss Model

Input arguments

The Absorption Loss Model plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Script Direction Provider

You can use Script Direction Provider files within the Phased Array Antenna model. This script computes the direction(s) for the beam (or nulls) at each time step. You can set the following fields on the Direction Provider:

Input arguments

The Direction Provider plugin script will be provided with the following inputs at each time step:

Output arguments

STK expects the script output data to be passed back from the script to STK. The outputs of this script are passed as inputs to the Beamformer. See Input Arguments for a description of the inputs to the script.

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Object Types

Phased Array Beamformer

This script computes a weight for each element within the Element Configuration at each time step.

The following fields can be set in the Beamformer script.

Some of the input data includes some of the output data from the Direction Provider. STK expects the script output data to be passed back from the script to STK. See the Input Arguments for script input information. See the Output Arguments for script output information.

Input arguments

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Custom Loss Model

The Custom Loss Model has the same format as the Absorption Loss model plugin script. To develop a custom script from a sample template, select an absorption loss model plugin script, in MATLAB or VBScript, from \CodeSamples\Extend\PluginScripts.

Rain Loss Model

Input arguments

The Rain Loss Model plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Antenna Multibeam Selection Strategy

Input arguments

The Antenna Multibeam Selection Strategy plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

CommSystem Link Selection Strategy

Input arguments

The CommSystem Link Selection Strategy plugin point has the following available inputs:

Each transmitter-receiver link pair is identified to the script using index values representing positions in the arrays of transmitters and receivers. Information about the attributes of all transmitters and receivers is passed to the script in the form of arrays. The script is called for each transmitter-receiver link pair available at each time instant. The expected output is a “cost” for the link. After the script is called for all available links for a given time instance, STK will order the costs in ascending order and select the first entry as the selected link.

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Satellite Selection Merit Value

Each transmitter-receiver link pair is identified to the script using index values representing positions in the arrays of transmitters and receivers. Information about the attributes of all transmitters and receivers is passed to the script in the form of arrays. The script is called for each transmitter-receiver link pair available at each time instant. The expected output is the rank order of these links on a relative scale. STK then uses the links beginning with the highest ranking.

Modulator

The Modulator has been broken down into two different script output interfaces, a Custom PSD Script, and an Ideal PSD Script. The first script output interface, Custom PSD Script, allows you to dynamically specify the Power Spectral Density as a set of magnitude values over a frequency range. The other interface, Ideal PSD Script, allows you to dynamically select a modulation and encoding, letting STK compute a theoretical PSD rather than you having to specify the points for a theoretical PSD. Both types of scripts have the same input interface. The available inputs for both followed by the outputs for each of the script output interfaces are provided below.

Input arguments

The Modulator Script plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments – Custom PSD Script Modulator

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Output arguments - Ideal PSD Script Modulator

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Demodulator

Input arguments

The Demodulator Script plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Filter

Input arguments

The Filter Model plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Comm Constraint

The following contains information on a plugin that applies Comm link budget criteria to determine whether access exists.

Access Constraint plugin points are also available for Comm objects.

Input arguments

The Comm Constraint plugin point has the following available inputs:

Output arguments

The following outputs are expected from the script by STK:

Search/Track Constraint

The Search/Track Constraint plugin extends the Search/Track mode computations. STK interfaces with the plugin script and provides updated object geometry, VGT data and radar performance data at each time step of the scenario execution. The script uses the STK-supplied data to compute a new parameter and return the value to STK.

Input arguments

The following table gives representation (data type) and, where applicable, unit information on each of the input arguments for the Search/Track Constraint plugin point.

Output Arguments

The following table gives representation (data type) and, where applicable, unit information on each of the output arguments for the Search/Track Constraint plugin point.

SAR Constraint

The SAR Constraint plugin extends the SAR mode computations. STK interfaces with the plugin script and provides updated object geometry, VGT data and radar performance data at each time step of the scenario execution. The script uses the STK-supplied data to compute a new parameter and return the value to STK.

Input arguments

The following table gives representation (data type) and, where applicable, unit information on each of the input arguments for the SAR Constraint plugin point.

Output arguments

The following table gives representation (data type) and, where applicable, unit information on each of the output arguments for the SAR Constraint plugin point.

Radar Cross Section (RCS)

The Radar Cross Section plugin computes the aspect dependent RCS values for each time step in a radar computation.

For more information, see Radar Cross Section Theta/Rho Definitions.

Input arguments

The following table gives representation (data type) and, where applicable, unit information on each of the input arguments for the Radar Cross Section plugin point.

Output Arguments

The following table gives representation (data type) and, where applicable, unit information on each of the output arguments for the Radar Cross Section plugin point.