A Survey on the Design of Binary Pulse Compression Codes with Low Autocorrelation

Abstract

Simple pulsed radar is limited in range sensitivity by the average radiation power and, in range resolution by the pulse length. The design of any radar always involves a compromise between the two constraints. Waveform design aims to seek an appropriate harmony that best suits the relevant application. The pulse compression theory has been introduced in order to get a high range resolution as well as a good detection probability. One of the basic types of pulse compression is binary phase coding which encodes the transmitted pulse with information that is compressed (decoded) in the receiver of the radar. The study of the peak sidelobe level (PSL) binary sequences occurs as a classical problem of signal design for digital communication and, in equivalent guise, in analytic number theory. It has also become a notorious problem of combinatorial optimization. For years mathematicians, engineers, physicists and chemists have sought a systematic way to construct long binary sequences with low PSL. In this Chapter, we describe pulse compression technique in radar waveform design. In order to make the presentation self-contained, we start by providing a short summary of waveform design and an introduction to principle behind pulse compression by compiling the basic tools required for analyzing and comparing different radar signals. After that, we talk about binary sequence, its desired properties and general types of methods for finding and generating such waveforms. We keep on by an overview and introducing the existing methods and search routine done. We conclude the chapter with a brief survey of the results exhibited yet for low autocorrelation binary sequences. We mention a table of complete results presented and also introduce a histogram to unscramble them visually and predict the future.