Dechirping Compression Method for Nonlinear Frequency Modulation Waveforms

Abstract

This letter proposes a novel dechirp processing method for wideband nonlinear frequency modulation (NLFM) waveform which enables low sampling rate of data. As we know, NLFM waveform can easily realize optimal shape of power spectral density which helps to achieve better pulse compression result with low range sidelobes without signal-to-noise ratio degradation caused by weighting as we usually do for LFM waveforms. In the approach, hamming window is adopted in the generation of the NLFM waveform for better balance on the low range sidelobes and a relative small bandwidth. In dechirp operation, the NLFM radar echoes are mixed with a local reference LFM signal, and thus narrowband signals are resulted and only low sampling rate is needed. The dechirped NLFM signals are then up-sampled and inverse dechirped by software and finally matched filtering is conducted to complete pulse compression. Both numerically simulated data and real radar data are processed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.