Radar target discrimination using a hybrid E-pulse fourth-order moments technique

A variant of the original extinction pulse (E-pulse) technique for radar target discrimination is proposed. The scheme includes, before convolution with the E-pulse discriminant waveform, a new stage in which the fourth-order moments sequence of the unknown-target impulse-response, r(t), is estimated. To justify this inclusion, it has been shown previously that, by using a particular set of one-dimensional slices on the fourth-order moments space and an appropriately defined `covariance-type´ estimator, this moments sequence retains the same damped complex exponential structure as signal r(t), thus only containing the natural resonances of the unknown target. Simulation results clearly show that significant improvements are achieved by using the fourth-order moments sequence of r(t) as the unknown-target signature, instead of the original signal r(t) in the E-pulse discrimination scheme. These results are especially notable when high levels of additive Gaussian noise, white or coloured, are present in r(t)