Development of a Signal Processor and Extractor Module for 3D Surveillance Radar

In this session, explore radar signal processing and data extractor modules developed for 3D surveillance radar for a ground-based air surveillance system. Radar design starts from user specifications such as unambiguous range, range resolution, and azimuth and range resolution and accuracies. We evaluated the Radar Designer app to perform initial radar design calculations. Radar waveform selection is crucial to the radar design meeting its performance specifications. Using the Pulse Waveform Analyzer app, we selected and verified radar waveforms. Matched filtering–based digital pulse compression was verified using MATLAB^® scripting. A radar signal processor (RSP) is responsible for target detection under environmental clutter. Many RSP algorithms are available whose performance verification requires high fidelity simulated input data. We successfully designed a complete RSP chain using Phased Array System Toolbox™ and Radar Toolbox. We built a simulated radar data extractor module consisting of elevation extraction and range and azimuth estimation methods in MATLAB using the toolboxes to provide better assessment of site recorded data. We overcame challenges encountered with range, azimuth, and elevation estimation of the data. MATLAB visualization enabled us to present our findings in a comprehensive manner. The RSP chain designed in MATLAB was validated on actual radar site data and found to be matching with actual performance with high fidelity. MATLAB proved to be extremely useful by reducing our design cycle and we were able to demonstrate our concept with a higher degree of confidence.