Time-Frequency Signal Representations Using Interpolations in Joint-Variable Domains

Abstract

Time-frequency (TF) representations are a powerful tool for analyzing Doppler and micro-Doppler signals. These signals are frequently encountered in various radar applications. Data interpolators play a unique role in TF signal representations under missing samples. When applied in the instantaneous autocorrelation domain over the time variable, the low-pass filter characteristic underlying linear interpolators lends itself to cross-terms reduction in the ambiguity domain. This is in contrast to interpolation performed over the lag variable or a direct interpolation of the raw data. We demonstrate the interpolator performance in both the time domain and the time-lag domain and compare it with sparse signal reconstruction, which exploits the local sparsity property assumed by most Doppler radar signals.