An extended processing scheme for coherent integration and parameter estimation based on matched filtering in passive radar

Abstract

In passive radars, coherent integration is an essential method to achieve processing gain for target detection. The cross ambiguity function (CAF) and the method based on matched filtering are the most common approaches. The method based on matched filtering is an approximation to CAF and the procedure is: (1) divide the signal into snapshots; (2) perform matched filtering on each snapshot; (3) perform fast Fourier transform (FFT) across the snapshots. The matched filtering method is computationally affordable and can offer savings of an order of 1000 times in execution speed over that of CAF. However, matched filtering suffers from severe energy loss for high speed targets. In this paper we concentrate mainly on the matched filtering method and we use keystone transform to rectify range migration. Several factors affecting the performance of coherent integration are discussed based on the matched filtering method and keystone transform. Modified methods are introduced to improve the performance by analyzing the impacts of mismatching, precision of the keystone transform, and discretization. The modified discrete chirp Fourier transform (MDCFT) is adopted to rectify the Doppler expansion in a multi-target scenario. A novel velocity estimation method is proposed, and an extended processing scheme presented. Simulations show that the proposed algorithms improve the performance of matched filtering for high speed targets.