Constant-envelope waveform design for optimal target-detection and autocorrelation performances

We propose an algorithm to directly synthesize in time-domain a constant-envelope transmit waveform that achieves the optimal performance in detecting an extended target in the presence of signal-dependent interference. This approach is in contrast to the traditional indirect methods that synthesize the transmit signal following the computation of the optimal energy spectral density. Additionally, we aim to maintain a good autocorrelation property of the designed signal. Therefore, our waveform design technique solves a bi-objective optimization problem in order to simultaneously improve the detection and autocorrelation performances, which are in general conflicting in nature. We demonstrate this compromising characteristics of the detection and autocorrelation performances with numerical examples. Furthermore, in the absence of the autocorrelation criterion, our designed signal is shown to achieve a near-optimum detection performance.