On the signal design for multifunction/multi-parameter radar

The requirements and the possible solutions for waveforms suited to multifunction phased array radar (MPAR) are described. A reasonable cost of the basic building block of the MPAR, i.e. for the Transmit-receive module (TRM), can only be obtained by lowering the peak power to the order of one watt by pulse-compression. Therefore, MPAR systems call for "long" transmitted signals, i.e. with high duty cycle, and for low range sidelobes (low PSLR for point targets, low ISLR for distributed targets such as rain) after pulse compression even in the presence of a significant Doppler shift. Moreover, multi parameter radar measurements (such as the real-time estimation of the full scattering matrix) call for the simultaneous transmission of orthogonal signals. To solve these problems, a novel combination of complementary and orthogonal codes is proposed and the pertaining advantages and drawbacks are discussed, in order to select a class of signal to be tested in the desired frame of an European pre-competitive research with an experimental multichannel radar.