A rate distortion method for waveform design in RF target detection

Conventional RF image formation relies on a fixed waveform set that is based largely on obtaining maximum resolution for a given amount of bandwidth present in a waveform. However, the correlation process for a given waveform set varies widely depending on the cross correlation properties of the waveform and the geometry of the aperture interrogating the object to be detected. We propose a method that maximizes quality of the object being detected by first using an orthogonal basis to minimize the unwanted correlation response for the waveform. We then shape the frequency and temporal correlation response of the waveform for a given target using a rate distortion criteria and demonstrate the imaging and detection performance of the method