Adaptive Radar Pulse Compression
Abstract
Pulse compression enables a radar to achieve the high range resolution of a short pulse without the need for high peak transmit power via the transmission of a modulated long pulse (or waveform) followed by its subsequent matched filtering upon reception. However, the matched filtering of large target returns produces sidelobes that can mask the presence of smaller nearby targets. A pertinent example of this is in landmine detection by ground-penetrating radar in which the ground return can mask the presence of a mine. The Radar Division has recently developed an approach denoted as Adaptive Pulse Compression (APC) whereby the radar receiver matched filter is adapted to the received signal using a novel variation of Minimum Mean-Square Error (MMSE) estimation. By adapting the receiver filter to the received signal, the sidelobes resulting from large targets can be suppressed to the level of the noise, thereby greatly increasing the radar's sensitivity to smaller targets.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA523386
Entities
People
- K. Gerlach
- Shannon D. Blunt
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory