Code selection for radar performance optimization

Abstract

In this paper we consider the synthesis of radar waveforms in the presence of colored disturbance. We focus on the class of coded pulse trains and determine the best radar codes according to some established optimality criteria. We propose three coding methods. Two of them are based on the maximization of the detection performance under a control on the estimation accuracy of the target Doppler frequency. The third relies on the maximization of the detection performance under a binary constraint on the code alphabet. Two proposed techniques require the solution of non-convex optimization problems which are solved resorting to the theory of relaxation and semidefinite programming. At the analysis stage the performances of the new coding strategies are assessed also in comparison with a standard radar code both in terms of detection probability and target Doppler estimation accuracy. The results show that the proposed techniques may lead to codes whose performances are close to the benchmark curves.