High performance digital pulse compression and generation

The European Space Agency (ESA) with an industrial team led by Alcatel Espace, has developed an all digital pulse generation and compression system for spaceborne rain radar application. The particular and most challenging constraint for this system was the capability to achieve a compressed pulse shape with very low range side-lobe level (<-60 dB). This objective was met and the results were published in a recent paper. More recently and as a continuation of this breadboarding activity, possible implementation in a real system was investigated taking into account different configurations, such as centralized amplification instruments or active array antennas. Performance improvement was also investigated and all factors limiting the actual performance were identified. Hardware integration using space qualified technologies was also assessed. Encouraged by the overall positive results of these activities, ESA is now planning to adapt this technique-or elements of this technique-to next generation spaceborne radars, such as topographic radar altimeters or future SARs