Introduction

Ultrawideband (UWB) signals came into use as a result of researchers'

efforts to learn as much as possible about the radar target. The initial
desire to discriminate between two closely flying planes changed, with the
development of electronic technologies, to the quest for constructing a
three-dimensional image of a target. The potential for direct reduction of
the incident pulse duration was soon exhausted and followed by a detailed
analysis of target-reflected signals. It became clear that the most important
changes in a target response occurred during a transient process of 1-2
oscillations' duration. This fact in itself led to the idea of using UWB
signals of this duration without energy expenditure for steady oscillation
transmission.
The current state of UWB radar science appears to be following a third
wave in researchers' interest in UWB signal application. This manifests itself
in the relative proportions of theoretical models and technological capabil-
ities. The first steps towards wideband pulse technology, originally known as
milli-microsecond range technology, were made in the 1950s and resulted
from the progress in electrovacuum and transistor physics. At that time,
radio pulses of nanosecond duration attracted the attention of few workers,
who used exotic methods for the shaping and registration of such signals.
The appearance in the 1970s of sampling oscilloscopes with frequency
bandwidths of over 10 GHz greatly stimulated the development of fast
response (picosecond range) transistors. The simultaneous transition to a
new generation of computers provided signal processing capabilities which
were earlier unthinkable. High resolution radars were designed for the
recognition of airborne and space targets, and UWB signals were adapted
to conventional radars and theoretical models. It became clear, eventually,
that the information potential of these signals could only be exploited by
new approaches to their theoretical treatment, signal processing and repre-
sentation of measurements. These lines of research developed rapidly in
the early 1990s. Today, interest in UWB radar measurements is growing. It
is accompanied by the appearance of new applications, such as ground
penetrating radars, construction control, etc. The number of publications
in these fields is rapidly increasing, and the overview edited by Taylor [100]
deserves special attention.
The authors of the present book have made an attempt to express their
point of view concerning some principal issues in both the theoretical
description of UWB radar signals and their computer processing. The
focus is on the possibility of modelling and measuring UWB signal wave-
forms as a principal source of information about a target. The scope of the
issues is much greater than in previous publications [1,85]. The authors
have become aware that narrowband theory based on signal representation
in the complex plane with the Hilbert transform can be applied to UWB
signals with reservations. The principal task of theoretical analysis, to the
authors' minds, should be the transient process and what is discarded in
the analytical signal mapping: discontinuity points in the function and its
derivatives. For this reason, a UWB signal is to be analysed in the phase
plane treated as a generalised complex plane. This explains the frequent
use of the word generalised in this book. This term primarily refers to the
concept of frequency, which becomes devoid of its averaged parameter
period to be treated as the angular velocity of the vector end that can be
defined and measured at any moment of time. This is the basic idea of UWB
waveform analysis in the time domain. The concepts of generalised signal
envelope, phase and instantaneous frequency as a measure of the waveform
informative value are introduced, and the latter concept is extended to a
polarised vector signal. In line with this approach is the widely used wavelet
transform analysis in the time domain. A time domain version of the geo-
metrical diffraction theory is considered as being applicable to the solution
of UWB electrodynamic problems.
This book presents a detailed discussion of mathematical models for radar
targets and the statistical processing of scattered signals. The efficiency of
the regularising algorithms suggested is illustrated with a description of
experimental data processing.
Further progress in UWB radar systems is closely associated with the
design of fast response (picosecond-range) devices, efficient antennas and
analogue-to-digital converters for a frequency of 10 GHz. These devices
can considerably improve UWB radar performance.
The authors are grateful to V.I. Norkin (Section 1.4), D.V. Sajapin
(Sections 1.5, 3.4), S.E. Shaldayev (Section 1.6), Yu.N. Kalinin (Section 5.7)
and A.F. Kononov (Section 5.8) who provided them with their results.