Monopulse radar based on spatiotemporal correlation of stochastic signals

Random noise radar has been applied successfully to range measurement, velocity estimation, and terrain/target imaging. Based on the previous work, this dissertation develops a new approach towards the signal propagation, signal processing, and system architectures for wideband, multifunction random noise monopulse. A harmonic analysis method is introduced to describe or control the behavior of individual frequency component of propagating random fields. Using this method, theoretical analysis and system simulations are conducted for the two basic architectures: the correlation receiver and the phase-comparison monopulse angle-of-arrival (AOA) estimator. For the first time, this dissertation studies the real-time performance, output frequency component statistics, and system design tradeoffs based upon wideband or ultra-wideband (UWB) stochastic signal waveforms. The concept of mean monopulse characteristic curve (MMCC) is introduced. A unified UWB radar system architecture, called coherent correlation receiver (CCR), is proposed. The architecture integrates array processing, correlation receiver, and traditional coherent architecture to demodulate both phase and amplitude information in the analog domain. As a specific example, a new experimental tracking radar system based on this architecture is described. This radar was built primarily for detection and tracking slow-moving targets and estimation of AOA using a wide-band random noise signal. For the phase-comparison monopulse, it is shown that the system has equivalent monopulse characteristic curve to a continuous wave (CW) single frequency monopulse radar system in the sense of statistical average. We show that the rich frequency content of the stochastic signal brings about important advantages, and the correlation receiver architecture enables continuous ambiguity-free range tracking. Experimental results supporting the theoretical and simulation analysis are presented and discussed