USRP2-based software defined radar receiver

Software defined radio is a paradigm of radio engineering that attempts to perform as much signal processing as possible with software. This allows solutions that are both flexible and cost effective. In terms of statistics, the form of measurement that contains the most information is the one that is as closest to the raw unprocessed measurement. In the field of radar, this corresponds to the direct RF or intermediate frequency level raw voltage data, limited to some band of interest. Software defined radar refers to a radar system that operates directly on the most raw form of data and applies Bayesian statistical methods to make inferences from this data. This is done with the help of general purpose computers and a modern scientific computing toolbox, possibly with the aid of supercomputing. In this thesis, we describe the implementation of a radar data acquisition system that is used as a component of a radar system. We also apply this system as an ionosonde receiver