Signal processing technique for randomly discontinuous spectra HF radar waveforms

A major problem with all high frequency (HF) radars is a relatively poor range resolution available due to many interference sources. To avoid the interferences in frequency domain and operate with wideband, the randomly discontinuous spectra (RDS) signal is employed. However, it results in high range sidelobes when matching the reflected echo, which is much more difficult for target detection. A new signal processing technique that is radically different from the conventional technique to lower range sidelobes is introduced. This method is based on suppressing the selfclutter of the radar range ambiguity function (AF) by mismatched filtering. An effective algorithm is adopted to solve the filter coefficients. Simulation results show that the peak sidelobe level can be reduced to −30dB and the achievable system bandwidth is about 400KHz. The technique is adaptable to practical radar systems and applicable for other realtime signal processing.