A design procedure for the design of advanced coded pulse radar waveforms generated from a finite set of samples

The optimal design of waveforms generated from a finite set of samples is a commercially significant problem of growing importance for the following two reasons. First, on account of progress in the fields of memory and digital-to-analogue convertor technology it is now feasible to generate waveforms with suitable durations and bandwidths for radar applications from a finite set of digital samples stored in buffer memory. Secondly, with regard to the enormous cost of modern radar systems especially those deployed in space, it is of the utmost importance to achieve maximum performance from a given system via the optimal selection of those design parameters which impact least on cost. The finite set of parameters specifying the transmitted waveform and the associated processing reference function is a prime example of such a parameter set. In the paper a description is given of how optimisation methods may be applied to the problem of radar waveform and processing reference function design. The technique described is applicable to any type of pulse compression radar system. However the technique described would prove especially suitable for the design of waveforms and processing reference functions for advanced high resolution radars, such as imaging synthetic aperture radars