Accurate range estimation of LFM monopulse radar based on virtual sample pulse compression

A high accuracy range estimation method based on Virtual Sample Pulse Compression (VSPC) is developed in this paper. Pulse compression based on FFT matching filter of transmitted signals and received signals is the range estimation method extensively used in various radar systems, however the estimation accuracy is limited by the bandwidth, especially for the low bandwidth radar. VSPC uses locally virtual sample to estimate more accurate scatter ranges. The coarse range is estimated by FFT based pulse compression, then the coarse estimation is fined through virtual sample of matrix Fourier Transform in the local neighborhood around the coarse estimation to achieve higher accuracy. Furthermore, as is shown in a lot of experiments, VSPC can achieve more accurate range estimation than conventional FFT based pulse compression method without increase the computation burden, especially for low bandwidth radar.