Comparison of detectability of radar waveforms using a digital channelized receiver

The detectability of instantaneously narrowband and wideband radar waveforms in a digital channelized receiver is studied in this work. The waveforms include monotone, linear frequency modulation (LFM), phase coded (PC), frequency coded (FC) and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Simulation results indicate that low probability of intercept (LPI) performance of these waveforms depends on bandwidth, especially instantaneous bandwidth, and the distribution of signal power over the whole bandwidth. An ideal LPI waveform should have broad instantaneous bandwidth and make the waveform energy uniformly spread over the occupied band. Among these waveforms, it is demonstrated that PC and OFDM signals have the lowest detection probabilities in a channelized receiver.