Designing Random FM Radar Waveforms with Compact Spectrum

Abstract

Spectrally-shaped random FM (RFM) waveforms have recently been shown to greatly expand radar design freedom, provide good spectral containment, and are amenable to physical implementation in high-power transmitters. A key design factor involves ways of enforcing a Gaussian spectral density via optimization, which leads to a Gaussian autocorrelation that theoretically has no range sidelobes. However, the gradual roll-off for this spectrum means that, for fixed transmitter bandwidth, the passband component must be narrower than for classical linear FM (LFM), thereby trading achievable range resolution. Here we examine the impact of using the family of super-Gaussian spectra to serve as alternative design templates. Using the temporal template error (TTE) RFM design scheme to generate physical waveforms in this context, radar performance trade-offs are examined to assess practical viability.