Waveform and Receiver Filter Selection for Wideband Radar Applications

This thesis concerns the design of transmitter-receiver chains for widebandradar systems. The transmitter side employs one, or several, highly flexiblesignal generators, which are able to generate signals with a large bandwidth.At the receiver side, when we are are able to select receiver filters, we havethe freedom to optimize also the receiver filters.Herein, the transmit waveforms and receiver filters are designed to fulfiluser-defined criteria. In general, a high probability of target detection, whilemaintaining a low false alarm rate, is desired. For a scenario in which interferenceis present, this means to achieve a high Signal-to-Interference-and-NoiseRatio.When advanced transmitter-receiver technology is implemented, the possibilityto adapt the system through a feedback loop arises. Informationabout the the radar operating environment is provided by signal processingtechniques. We propose a Kalman filter to follow a time-evolving cluttermap,based on the complex received signal samples. The estimates of thecomplex clutter reflections are utilized to determine parameters of the clutterdistribution.The system should, in addition, experience a robust target detection property.This is important when targets are not confined on a user-specified gridof time-delays and time-scalings. We derive an algorithm where the mainlobewidth of the correlation function is adapted according to a desired resolution.The thesis also deals with hardware restrictions. A study on how to synthesizetime domain signals from achieved power spectra is performed. Wesynthesize signals with given spectral properties that experience a low peakto-average-power ratio. A signal with constant envelope is also achievable byallowing the power spectrum to deviate somewhat from its desired shape