A Single Receive Channel DBF Method for Ultra-Wideband Radar

Abstract

In this paper, we present a space code agility-based single receive channel digital beamforming (DBF) method for ultra-wideband radar. The proposed single channel DBF method outperforms the existing single channel DBF method with a space-time coded array architecture regarding both the angular and the range sidelobe levels by integrating multiple pulses modulated by irrelevant space codes. A frequency-domain equivalent DBF algorithm is also developed. This algorithm is immune to the mismatch between the sampling rate of the recorded signal and the space-time response function of the space-time coded array under ultra-wideband circumstances, in which cases the existing space-time coded array DBF methods will suffer. Moreover, the target motion over multiple pulse repetition intervals (PRIs) is taken into account in the development of the frequency-domain DBF algorithm. Therefore, performance degradation due to target motion is avoided. Numerical simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. INDEX TERMS Digital beamforming (DBF), single receive channel, ultra-wideband radar, space-time coded array, space code agility.