Performance analysis of different Pulse Compression Techniques for IMPROVING range resolution IN radar Technology

Abstract

RADAR, which is an abbreviation for Radio Detection And Ranging, is an electromagnetic system for the detection and location of reflecting objects such as aircraft, ships, spacecraft, vehicles, people and natural environment. Delectability of an object or target depends on range resolution of reflected signal from the object or target. The range resolution of Radar is defined as the minimum separation (in range) of two targets or equal cross section that can be resolved as separate targets. It is determined by the bandwidth of the reflected signal. As spectral bandwidth of a pulse is inversely proportional to its width, the bandwidth of a short pulse is large. Range resolution for given radar can be significantly improved by using very short pulses. As short pulses decreases the average transmitted power, pulse compression allows us to achieve the average transmitted power of a relatively long pulse, while obtaining the range resolution corresponding to a short pulse. Pulse compression technique is generally used in Radar system in order to improve the target detection and range resolution. A Problem arises in pulse compression technique because of masking of small targets by the range side lobes of large nearby targets. Another problem is for multiple targets-main lobes of the compressed pulses overlap each other. This thesis has proposed a technique to suppress the side lobes and eradicate the problem of overlapping by comparing different pulse compression techniques. In the simulation, we compared the result of analog pulse compression output by applying different weighting function. For multiple targets we compare the output of stretch processor technique with Barker Codes of different lengths. It is revealed that Barker Code of length thirteen (𝐵13) is better both for reduction of side lobes and detecting multiple targets.