Stepped-frequency noise radar with short switching time and high dynamic range

Stepped frequency technique is in wide use in radar. Narrow frequency bandwidth of the transmitted signal is an attractive feature of this technique which enables application of rather slow sampling rate. In this case, high-bit and cost effective ADCs are readily availability. However, this technique also has some drawbacks, such as: (a) Ambiguity in range measurements; (b) High level of range side lobes; (c) Low resistance against narrowband coherent interferences. To go around these drawbacks we suggest application of random waveforms with synthesized spectrum. In this case the ensemble of the probing signals realizations can be produced in different ways: (1) Stepped variation of a single frequency signal over a discrete frequency mesh according to a random law, i.e. frequency hopping with random frequency hops; (2) Step-like increase of the central frequency of a narrow band random signal over a discrete mesh of frequencies; (3) Frequency hopping of a narrow band random signal according to a random law, i.e. random frequency hopping of random signals.