Title :
Mitigation of radar range ambiguities via waveform diversity
Author :
Mendelson, Howard ; Zulch, Peter
Author_Institution :
Trident Syst., Fairfax, VA
Abstract :
The USAF is considering a number of radar systems as a method to achieve persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) over the Earth´s surface. A comprehensive approach must be taken that identifies feasible radar system parameters, geometry, area coverage and processing approaches that will provide needed moving target indication MTI (both ground and air) performance. From the signal processing perspective, there are a number of unique technical challenges facing this concept. Issues which will need to be addressed include the restriction of antenna aperture and the need to locate and detect targets at shallow grazing angles These and other phenomenology will impact the ability of algorithms implemented by the system to perform image formation, target detection and parameter estimation. This paper presents a new approach to the problem of radar range ambiguities in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and surface moving target indication (SMTI). By using a combination a priori knowledge of the collection geometry, orthogonal waveforms and an alternative approach to traditional matched filter processing, it can be shown that the effects of the ambiguities can be mitigated and provide image quality and SMTI performance with little degradation as compared to the non-ambiguous case.
Keywords :
military radar; radar cross-sections; radar imaging; radar signal processing; synthetic aperture radar; antenna aperture; collection geometry; matched filter processing; orthogonal waveforms; radar area coverage; radar range ambiguities mitigation; radar systems; signal processing; surface moving target indication; synthetic aperture radar imagery; waveform diversity; Aperture antennas; Earth; Geometry; Radar antennas; Radar detection; Radar signal processing; Reconnaissance; Signal processing algorithms; Surveillance; Synthetic aperture radar;
Conference_Titel :
Waveform Diversity and Design Conference, 2009 International
Conference_Location :
Kissimmee, FL
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2970-7
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2971-4
DOI :
10.1109/WDDC.2009.4800348