Code inverse filtering for complete sidelobe removal in binary phase coded pulse compression systems

Pulse compression is used in radar systems to improve range resolution while maintaining a high duty cycle. In addition to practical implementation constraints, the key issues for the selection of a pulse-compression waveform are mismatch loss, peak / integrated range sidelobes, and Doppler tolerance. While much progress has been made in the design of nonlinear frequency modulated (FM) chirp waveforms satisfying these requirements, the corresponding performance for binary phase-coded waveforms is often inadequate. In order to improve the range sidelobes achieved with phase-coded waveforms, specially designed mismatched pulse compression filters can be used. Several such approaches have been described in the literature since 1959. This paper review these techniques and highlight a particular approach using infinite impulse response (IIR) filters, which has received little attention in the past. Using this technique the performance for a number of binary phase codes of different length have been determined and their Doppler tolerance is investigated.