Clutter rejection and transmitter-receiver requirements in an airborne radar

Ground clutter rejection requirements imposed on the exciter transmitter-receiver units of multirole airborne radar are examined. Methods are given to determine the characteristics of the units, such as noise, spurious spectral lines level, and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) dynamics, in both high- and medium-pulse-repetition-frequency modes of operation. It is shown that the spectral noise does not depend on either the wave form or the Doppler bandwidth. The reference oscillator spectral noise must be about -155 dB/sub c//Hz. The level of spurious lines generally depends only on the duty cycle, and the requirement is -80 dB/sub c/ for each line. ADC requires 12 to 14 b. The high-frequency mode is the most promising for detecting targets with very low radar cross sections in head-on configuration (free clutter domain).<>