Purpose The purpose of this research is to design and develop a technique for polyphase code design for the radar system. Design/methodology/approach The proposed fractional harmony search algorithm (FHSA) performs the polyphase code design. The FHSA binds the properties of the harmony search algorithm and the fractional theory. An optimal fitness function based on the coherence and the autocorrelation is derived through the proposed FHSA. The performance metrics such as power, autocorrelation and cross-correlation measure the efficiency of the algorithm. Findings The performance metrics such as power, autocorrelation and cross-correlation is used to measure the efficiency of the algorithm. The simulation results show that the proposed optimal phase code design with FHSA outperforms the existing models with 1.420859, 4.09E−07, 3.69E−18 and 0.000581 W for the fitness, autocorrelation, cross-correlation and power, respectively. Originality/value The proposed FHSA for the design and development of the polyphase code design is developed for the RADAR is done to reduce the effect of the Doppler shift.