A Robust Radio Frequency Fingerprint Identification Scheme for LFM Pulse Radars

Abstract

Radar transmitter identification technology based on pulse descriptor word (PDW) is broadly used in military and civilian applications. However, as the complexity of the electromagnetic environment has increased, radar identification has been challenging. Radio frequency fingerprint (RFF) is an intrinsic hardware characteristic and has been widely employed for device identification. In this paper, we propose a robust RFF identification scheme for linear frequency modulation (LFM) pulse radars. The scheme includes a proposed piecewise curve fitting based denoising (PCFD) algorithm and a hybrid RFF identification algorithm. The PCFD algorithm can reduce the noise of LFM pulses without undermining RFF features. The hybrid RFF identification algorithm extracts both transient-based and modulation-based RFF features. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed radar identification scheme can achieve a 100% identification accuracy when the SNR is about 0 dB.