Design and Development of DSP Interfaces and Algorithm for FMCW Radar Altimeter

Abstract

The paper presents the design and development of signal processing algorithm for Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave Radar Altimeter with a wide dynamic range of altitude for the application of aerial weapons. The wide dynamic range of altitude is achieved by making use of varying sweep rates. To entitle “on the fly” fast reconfiguration of waveform parameters by FPGA, a high-speed DDS based implementation has been utilized which ensures fast sweep waveform generation with different sweep rates for different altitude zones. The presented scheme is designed at reducing the beat frequency bandwidth particularly for the applications of wide altitude range measurement which thusly leads to better sensitivity. To evaluate and validate the performance of the radar altimeter in real-time, the airborne test setup has been created along with a GPS system to ensure the proper functioning of radar altimeter.