Design and implementation of multi mode Radar Target simulator using Direct Digital Synthesizer

Idea of Hardware Radar simulator is to electronically generate the Radar illuminated environment without switching on actual Radar transmitter in the field. This paper describes the implementation of Radar Target simulator using advanced technology of arbitrary waveform generator (Direct Digital Synthesizer chip) & FPGA. The Radar Target Simulator has the advantage of measuring of system response, evaluating and optimizing the performance of radars without expensive field trips to harsh regions and can be used to test the radar without interfering with commercial wireless devices. It replicates the feed-through signal between transmit and receive antenna for CW Radar, Conventional Pulsed Radar (with pulse width >70ns) and LFM Pulse Compression Radar. In each mode it accurately generates phase-coherent transmit pulses & simulates target echoes (replication of transmit pulse) with following programmable parameters; (a) Target range by time delay (b) Doppler shift to simulate moving target through phase control of pulses (c) Signal strength to simulate SNR target echoes With the above mentioned salient features this Target Simulator can be used to develop and test Radar Algorithms e.g. Digital Receiver/Pre-processing, Pulse Compression Algorithm, Target detection, Range calculation/range resolution test up to 10m, Doppler Processing and tracking of single or multiple targets. Hence, operating in the 10 to 170MHz range, the target simulator is well-suited to the task of generating multiple phase-coherent signals in the IF range. The output is also compatible with frequency converters, which extends useful operation into the RF realm. The prototype can operate in a stand-alone configuration and can be used for algorithm development, testing and evaluation of the radar in the laboratory.