Radar System Design

Chapter 14
MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
14 - 1 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Moving Target Indication (MTI) radar: A delay line
canceller filter to isolate moving targets from
nonmoving background
- Ambiguous velocity
- Unambiguous range
Pulsed Doppler radar: Doppler data are extracted
by the use of range gates and Doppler filters.
- Unambiguous velocity
- Unambiguous or ambiguous range
14 - 2 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulsed Radar
High-PRF: unambiguous Doppler frequency, highly
ambiguous range
- solve TX-RX coupling problem of CW system
- Range blind during TX time periods
Low-PRF: unambiguous range, highly Doppler
frequency
- circumvents the TX-RX coupling
- Introduce Doppler blind zones (ground clutter)
Medium-PRF: ambiguous Doppler frequency,
ambiguous range
- circumvents the TX-RX coupling
- Improve noise-limited detection relative
to low-PRF waveform
- Minimize the number of introduced blind
zones relative to low-PRF system.
14 - 3 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulsed Radar Parameters
Range: range is obtained from transmit-to-receive
pulse delay T
- ,
Range Resolution: Pulse width must be shorter
than the propagation time from target 1 to target 2
and back
Unambiguous range
, T: pulse repetition interval (PRI)
- There are ways to get around this by using a
staggered PRI (Multi-PRF)
2R cT = R ct 2 =
1s 150m 1ns 15cm
2 R
2
R
1
( ) ct = t 2 R
2
R
1
( ) c =
R A ct 2 =
R
unamb
cT 2 =
R
ct
2
------- =
Transmit
pulse
t
Target 1
Return
Target 2
Return
R
1
ct
1
2 =
R
2
ct
2
2 =
Transmit
pulse
t
Combined returned
from target 1 and 2
T
Unambiguous Range (R < cT/2)
Ambiguous Range (R > cT/2)
R
ct'
2
-------- =
R A
14 - 4 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulsed Doppler Power Spectrum
f
d
2V
c

---------- | cos =
: angle between the platform velocityand the
line of sight (LOS)
|
14 - 5 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulsed Radar
Noncoherent Pulsed Radar
- No reference signal
Coherent Pulsed Radar
- TX phase is reserved
MTI Radar
- detection of moving target by
suppressing fixed targets
14 - 6 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulsed Doppler Radar
Range gate
1
2 3 4
switch sampling
Sampling
Analog
Digital
FFT
(filter bank)
Doppler Information
Range Information
14 - 7 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Power Spectrum Density (Pulsed)
As the antenna scans, the beam dwell time is finite.
: interpulse period; : pulse period T
i
t
p
N+1 = 5
14 - 8 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Power Spectrum Density (Pulsed) 2
A five-burst waveform: the return from a scatter at a
slant range .
- contains four pulse samples
- contains only one pulse sample
The shape of both the spectrum and ambiguity function
for is important determine performance of MTI
and pulsed Doppler radars.
R
T
R
T
R
AMB

R
T
R
AMB
+
t
N=4
N = 5
N+1=5
N+1=4
N+1=4
N+1=1
14 - 9 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Power Spectrum Density (Pulsed RF)
14 - 10 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Radar Equation for Pulsed Radar
Until now, we have not said a great deal about
filtering of the return signal except to say that
matched filtering is desirable and for
most pulse radars.
In some cases, we need a better idea about
bandwidth for estimation S/N ratio.
Recall that we previously developed a radar
equation of the form
previously we consider this to be a single pulse.
Integration of pulses: Depending on scan rate &
PRF, we may receive more than 1 pulse from a
target. We can use that our advantage
- : number of pulses for
integration during dwelling time.
- : beamwidth, : antenna scan rate
- : PRF
B
IF
1 t =
R
max
P
t
G
2

2
o
4t ( )
3
kTBFL S
o
N
o
( )
min
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 4 /
=
n
B
u
B
u
s

( ) f
P
=
u
B
u
s

f
P
u
B
u
s

An example: If , ,
PRF=300Hz
u
s

5rpm = u
B
1.5 =
u
s

5rpm round/per min. ( ) =

5 360 1 60 ( ) = 30 sec =
n
B
1.5
30
----------
\ .
| |
300 15 pulses = =
14 - 11 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulse Integration
Two techniques
- Predetection Integration
- Postdetection Integration
Predetection Integration is coherent but
somewhat more difficult to implement than
postdetection
Postdetection is incoherent but some
improvement in (S
o
/N
o
) can be obtained.
IF
Envelope
detection
Video
Amp.
Predetection Postdetection
coherent
integration
Coherent addition
signal
Noise
P
signal
nv ( )
2

n
2

Noncoherent addition
P
signal
nP
n in a pulse ( )

Predetection
Postdetection
14 - 12 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulse Integration
Recall we were developing alternate expression for the
radar system equation
- : single pulse S/N required for
prespecification .
- :efficiency factor; n: # of pulses integrated
- Note that for a pulse radar is a peak power, we can
also express in terms of average power
, where : Pulse width, :
PRI; : duty cycle.
- ; : Energy per pulse
R
max
P
t
G
2

2
onE
i
n ( )
4t ( )
3
kTBFL S
o
N
o
( )
min
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 4 /
=
S
o
N
o
( )
min
P
FA
E
i
n ( )
P
t
P
avg
P
t
t T ( ) tP
t
f
p
= = t T
t T
P
t
P
avg
tf
p
= Et P
avg
f
p
=
R
max
P
av
G
2

2
onE
i
n ( )
4t ( )
3
kT Bt ( )FL S
o
N
o
( )
min
f
p
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 4 /
=
EtG
2

2
onE
i
n ( )
4t ( )
3
kT Bt ( )FL S
o
N
o
( )
min
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 4 /
=
We can express
- for ideal predetection ;
- : effective #
pulses integrated
Example: , ,
find . If 1000
pulses are integrated (postdetection
square law)

S N ( )
min
S
o
N
o
( )
min
nE
i
n ( ) ( ) =
E
i
n ( ) 1 =
n
1 2 /
E
i
n ( ) 1 s s
I
i
n ( ) nE
i
n ( ) =
P
FA
10
12
= P
D
0.9 =
S
o
N
o
( )
min
15.8dB ~
S N ( )
min
S
o
N
o
( )
min
nE
i
n ( ) ( ) =
15.8 10 130 ( ) log = 5.34 dB =
R
max
P
t
G
2

2
o
4t ( )
3
kTBFL S N ( )
min
-----------------------------------------------------------
1 4 /
=
P
t
G
2

2
onE
i
n ( )
4t ( )
3
kTBFL S
o
N
o
( )
min
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 4 /
=
14 - 13 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Noncoherent Pulsed Radar
Noncoherent Pulsed Radar
- No reference signal used by the receiver is phase
coherent to the output phase of the transmitter.
- A free-running pulsed transmitter
- Automatic Frequency Control (AFC) Local OSC is
made to track the transmitter frequency
- IF signal is bandpass filtered and amplified by IF
amplifier
- Square law (noncoherent) detection noncoherent
integrated signal processor CFAR

frequency coherent
Bandpass Filtered
Problems encountered in detecting
small-RCS in expected background
clutter environments
- WB Filter high noise
- Radar designer is left with only a few
techniques to minimize the
performance limits imposed by return
from background clutter.
- constrain parameters: operating
frequency, maximum permitted
antenna dimension dimensions...

to TX frequency
14 - 14 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Coherent Pulsed Radar
The phase of TX waveform is preserved is a reference signal
the receiver for signal demodulation
The use of STRALO and COHO reference signals to store the
phase of the later signal processing identifies the radar.

No filter bank
Relative complexity between coherent
and noncoherent systems
- If it were not for performance,
noncoherent configuration would be
used extensively used in search radar
applications.
Advantage of coherent detection:
exploitation of different Doppler shift to
isolate desired target responses from
large dominating (in amplitude)
background returns
- Relative motion between desired
target and its background
Some techniques through which
noncoherent radar can be used to
accomplish Doppler shift-aided
detection of targets
14 - 15 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulsed Coherent MTI
The detection of moving targets are improved by suppression of
fixed targets.
This is expanded to incorporate Doppler processing as one
possible form of MTI implementation
is deified as one uses simple band reject to reject the return
from fixed targets Enhanced detection of the moving target
Doppler filter
- A relative narrow bandwidth
clutter is rejected.
- A broad passband (unknown
Doppler shift)
- Post-Doppler processing stage
Noncoherent integration
- Rejection notches in the
passband should be placed in
frequency about the response
that are to be rejected and
should be as wide as required to
achieve the desired clutter
cancellation.

Noncoherent
integration
14 - 16 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
MTI filter (Delay line canceller)
Two techniques are available for realizing MTI filter
Delay line canceller
- Digital filter (Multipulse canceller)
- A real-time delay is equal to the PRI
- Digital implementations can provide the desired
passband with the flexibility of passband
programmability The preferred choice
Range gate and filter

14 - 17 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar

Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Range gate and filter
output of phase detector (I or Q) is
provided as input to N sample-and-
hold circuits
Each sample-and-hold circuit
receives a sample gate a
lumped constant (active) bandpass
filter
: lower corner frequency. :
higher corner frequency. : PRF
Noncoherent MTI
- A-scope range video
presentations contain butterflies
at the slant range of the moving
target.
- Each butterfly is created by the
fluctuating amplitude of the sum
of the return from both the
background and the target

f
L
f
H
f
R
14 - 18 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Noncoherent MTI
Noncoherent MTI
- A-scope range video presentations contain
butterflies at the slant range of the moving
target.
- Each butterfly is created by the fluctuating
amplitude of the sum of the return from both
the background and the target
A-scope
14 - 19 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulse Doppler Radar (Analog)
A pulsed Doppler radar exploits Doppler
shift to obtain velocity information from a
pulsed waveform
- High-PRF pulsed Doppler airbone radar
- Medium-PRF pulsed Doppler airbone
radar
Two approaches
- Analog filtering
- Digital filtering
Analog filtering
- processing at IF
- Output of IF amplifier is gated
- gated output is then filtered by a bank of
contiguous narrowband (NB) filters
- Automatic detection and signal-sorting.
select so that overlap occurs at -3dB
3dB
BW
f
IF
14 - 20 Chapter 14: MTI and Pulsed Doppler Radar
Dr. Sheng-Chou Lin
Radar System Design
Pulse Doppler Radar (Digital)
selection of digital approach for most modern pulsed
Doppler radar designs.
Spectral leakage
- uniformly weighted set of N samples
- Other Doppler shift High sidelobes in the same
range cell
- aperture weighting is used to minimize the spectral
leakage.

Sin nx ( ) x ( ) sin

Digital filtering (FFT)

- In-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) video
- Analog-to-digital conversion (A/D)
- N-point fast Fourier transform (FFT)
- N contiguous filter passbands (span
from zero to PRF)
- The number of range cells (m) and
Doppler cells (N) increases the
amount of hardware grows
dramatically.
- Modern digital technology leads to
hardware efficient realizations
N-point FFT which produces a finite
impulse response filter is the desired
matched-filter for a finite sequence
(step scan algorithms)
NB filter (infinite impulse response) in
the analog approach can be only an
approximation of the desired matched-
filter.