Signal filtering using hard-limited digital processing. Part 2: Performance with a single target in a coloured-noise background

The effect of hard clipping on the filtering of a sampled narrowband sinusoidal signal, embedded in coloured noise, is assessed by simulating the processing system on a digital computer, with particular reference to a radar pulse-Doppler signal-processing system. The noise has a spectrum which is approximately Gaussian, centred on zero frequency, bandwidth 0.12 of p.r.f. The narrowband signal either has a constant amplitude or can fade slowly relative to the duration of a processing period. Values are given for processing loss relative to an ideal processing system. For most of the results the noise is generated synthetically, but a limited experiment with real-sea-clutter records confirms the validity of the results in practice.