Ambiguity functions and noise floor suppression in random noise radar

摘要

Noise radar can be used in a great number of applications including SAR. The non-periodic waveform suppresses the range ambiguity and reduces the probability of intercept and interference. Due to the randomness of the waveform, a noise floor limiting the possible side lobe suppression accompanies the correlation integral involved. In strong clutter scenes with dominant reflectors, the induced noise floor can be too high and further suppression is needed. In this paper, the ambiguity function of random noise waveforms is first analyzed, and an improved formulation is introduced to include the noise floor effect. The use of mismatched filtering for improved sidelobe suppression is then discussed. Finally, an iterative subtraction algorithm is analyzed for noise floor cancellation in the presence of dominating reflectors. This method is successfully tested on random step frequency radar data and noise sodar data.