Digital implementation issues in a pulse compression radar system

Digital implementations of pulse compression (matched) filters is becoming more common in radar systems, facilitated by cheaper, faster, and more powerful digital signal processing hardware. Pulse compression filters are limited in performance by the sidelobes that appear in the filter output in addition to the desired peak. With different waveform and filter combinations, sidelobes are decreased but often at the price of reduced processing gain, which affects the performance of detecting small radar-cross section objects. This paper examines factors affecting performance when such filters are implemented in a practical system using field programmable gate arrays.