A new multicarrier chaotic phase coded stepped-frequency pulse train radar signal and its characteristic analysis

Waveform design plays an important role in radar system design. Multicarrier phase coded (MCPC) radar signal has a lot of advantages, such as flexible parameters designing and good spectral efficiency. In this study, we introduce chaotic sequences with weak structure characteristic and MCPC into stepped-frequency signal so as to design two different types of multicarrier chaotic phase coded stepped-frequency pulse train signals and discuss the ambiguity function, autocorrelation and low probability of intercept (LPI) performance of the two signals. Simulation results show that the designed signals have a thumbtack ambiguity function and a lower periodic autocorrelation side lobe which reduce the defect of range-Doppler coupling of stepped-frequency signal significantly. Besides that, the designed signals also have excellent LPI performance and the feature of waveform diversity due to their many merits, such as flexible structure, large number of parameters and complex modulation mode.