Publications

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The performance of a Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) radar system depends on a variety of factors, many which are interdependent in some manner. It is often difficult to 'get your arms around' the problem of ascertaining achievable performance limits, and yet those limits exist and are dictated by physics. This report identifies and explores those limits, and how they depend on hardware system parameters and environmental conditions. Ultimately, this leads to a characterization of parameters that offer optimum performance for the overall GMTI radar system. While the information herein is not new to the literature, its collection into a single report hopes to offer some value in reducing the 'seek time'.

Doppler radars can distinguish targets from clutter if the target's velocity along the radar line of sight is beyond that of the clutter. Some targets of interest may have a Doppler shift similar to that of clutter. The nature of sea clutter is different in the clutter and exo-clutter regions. This behavior requires special consideration regarding where a radar can expect to find sea-clutter returns in Doppler space and what detection algorithms are most appropriate to help mitigate false alarms and increase probability of detection of a target. This paper studies the existing state-of-the-art in the understanding of Doppler characteristics of sea clutter and scattering from the ocean to better understand the design and performance choices of a radar in differentiating targets from clutter under prevailing sea conditions.

A Linear Frequency-Modulated (LFM) chirp is a function with unit amplitude and quadratic phase characteristic. In a focused Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image, a residual chirp is undesired for targets of interest, as it coarsens the manifested resolution. However, for undesired spurious signals, a residual chirp is often advantageous because it spreads the energy and thereby diminishes its peak value. In either case, a good understanding of the effects of a residual LFM chirp on a SAR Impulse Response (IPR) is required to facilitate system analysis and design. This report presents an analysis of the effects of a residual chirp on the IPR. As reference, there is a rich body of publications on various aspects of LFM chirps. A quick search reveals a plethora of articles, going back to the early 1950s. We mention here purely as trivia one of the earlier analysis papers on this waveform by Klauder, et al.

Trihedral corner reflectors are the preferred canonical target for SAR performance evaluation for many radar development programs. The conventional trihedrals have problems with substantially reduced Radar Cross Section (RCS) at low grazing angles, unless they are tilted forward, but in which case other problems arise. Consequently there is a need for better low grazing angle performance for trihedrals. This is facilitated by extending the bottom plate. A relevant analysis of RCS for an infinite ground plate is presented. Practical aspects are also discussed.

Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) radar maps echo data to range and range-rate, which is a function of a moving target's velocity and its position within the antenna beam footprint. Even stationary clutter will exhibit an apparent motion spectrum and can interfere with moving vehicle detections. Consequently it is very important for a radar to understand how stationary clutter maps into radar measurements of range and velocity. This mapping depends on a wide variety of factors, including details of the radar motion, orientation, and the 3-D topography of the clutter.

Angular orientation errors of the real antenna for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) will manifest as undesired illumination gradients in SAR images. These gradients can be measured, and the pointing error can be calculated. This can be done for single images, but done more robustly using multi-image methods. Several methods are provided in this report. The pointing error can then be fed back to the navigation Kalman filter to correct for problematic heading (yaw) error drift. This can mitigate the need for uncomfortable and undesired IMU alignment maneuvers such as S-turns.

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Demand is increasing for imaging ships at sea. Conventional SAR fails because the ships are usually in motion, both with a forward velocity, and other linear and angular motions that accompany sea travel. Because the target itself is moving, this becomes an Inverse- SAR, or ISAR problem. Developing useful ISAR techniques and algorithms is considerably aided by first understanding the nature and characteristics of ship motion. Consequently, a brief study of some principles of naval architecture sheds useful light on this problem. We attempt to do so here. Ship motions are analyzed for their impact on range-Doppler imaging using Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR). A framework for analysis is developed, and limitations of simple ISAR systems are discussed.

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Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) performance testing and estimation is facilitated by observing the system response to known target scene elements. Trihedral corner reflectors and other canonical targets play an important role because their Radar Cross Section (RCS) can be calculated analytically. However, reflector orientation and the proximity of the ground and mounting structures can significantly impact the accuracy and precision with which measurements can be made. These issues are examined in this report.

A principal measure of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image quality is the manifestation in the SAR image of a spatial impulse, that is, the SAR's Impulse Response (IPR). IPR requirements direct certain design decisions in a SAR. Anomalies in the IPR can point to specific anomalous behavior in the radar's hardware and/or software.

Computed Tomography (CT) is a well established technique, particularly in medical imaging, but also applied in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging. Basic CT imaging via back-projection is treated in many texts, but often with insufficient detail to appreciate subtleties such as the role of non-uniform sampling densities. Herein are given some details often neglected in many texts.

Coherent Change Detection (CCD) with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images is a technique whereby very subtle temporal changes can be discerned in a target scene. However, optimal performance requires carefully matching data collection geometries and adjusting the processing to compensate for imprecision in the collection geometries. Tolerances in the precision of the data collection are discussed, and anecdotal advice is presented for optimum CCD performance. Processing considerations are also discussed.

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Nonlinear FM (NLFM) waveforms offer a radar matched filter output with inherently low range sidelobes. This yields a 1-2 dB advantage in Signal-to-Noise Ratio over the output of a Linear FM (LFM) waveform with equivalent sidelobe filtering. This report presents details of processing NLFM waveforms in both range and Doppler dimensions, with special emphasis on compensating intra-pulse Doppler, often cited as a weakness of NLFM waveforms.

Pulsed Radar systems suffer range ambiguities, that is, echoes from pulses transmitted at different times arrive at the receiver simultaneously. Conventional mitigation techniques are not always adequate. However, pulse modulation schemes exist that allow separation of ambiguous ranges in Doppler space, allowing easy filtering of problematic ambiguous ranges.