New radar pulse compression codes by particle swarm algorithm

In this paper, new optimized multilevel biphase pulse compression codes (MBPCC) with low peak side lobe (PSL) and mean side lobes (MSL) have been investigated. Amplitude and phase coding have been used during the optimization process. In previous studies, biphase codes were optimized using genetic algorithm (GA). The robustness of genetic algorithm in solving optimization problems degrades simultaneously as the code length increases. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm has been used with MBPCC to solve this problem. PSO algorithm has the merits of rapid convergence to the global optimum. Complete description of PSO implementation process has been clarified. Swarm intelligence boasts a number of advantages due to the use of mobile agents. Set of novel codes with optimum PSL ranging between -27.06 dB and -38.26 dB for codes of length 5 up to 45 has been introduced. Optimization results obtained using both PSO and GA has been compared. Comparative study shows both the optimality and superiority of PSO algorithm over GA for different code lengths. MBPCC have a precision of 10³ (-30) dB, which can be feasibly implemented using digital attenuators at element level with optimum performance and hardware implementation facility.