ATAT Operations Manual Summary

This is an Operations Manual for the Advanced Traversing Antenna Tower (ATAT), a 42-axis motion control system designed and prepared by Delta Sigma Company for the United States Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base. The ATAT comprises six independently controllable platforms capable of positioning 12 GFE antennas ranging in height from 2 to 55 feet, with each platform providing independent control of Roll (polarization), Pitch (elevation), and Yaw (azimuth) axes. The system breaks down into five main mechanical subassemblies: the base, electrical stand, RF connections, tower mast, six platforms, and twelve RPY positioners.

The manual provides comprehensive guidance for system operation including detailed descriptions of the tower base with four wheel mounts and mechanically-deployed jacks featuring a two-speed design, the tower mast with cable management and high-performance foam absorber rated to reduce reflections between 30 MHz and 100 GHz, and six platforms equipped with limit switches and collision-prevention mechanisms. Critical operational procedures include system startup, measuring the System Under Test (SUT) point, setup creation through direct entry or experimentation methods, platform positioning, azimuth axis alignment, and troubleshooting. The manual addresses software limitations for platform-to-platform collision prevention and antenna collision prevention through bounding box calculations, maintenance screen functions, user variable settings, and common alarm codes such as A.050 (combination error), A.810 (encoder failure), and A.d00 (position error), along with procedures for resetting RPY and height axes to zero position.