Design and Field-Programmable Gate Array Realization of a Multirate Multisampling Algorithm for Improving Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Pulse Compression Radars

Abstract

Due to the ongoing advancements in small unmanned systems (SUSs), the field of study on detecting targets with small radar cross section (RCS) areas is constantly expanding. Due to their widespread use in both military and civilian fields, drones are considered the most significant class of small unmanned devices, garnering significant attention. As a result, numerous methods have been developed to improve radar detection performance by mainly increasing its processing gain (PG) in order to keep up with the advancement of drone capabilities. In this article, we introduce a multirate algorithm for improving the PG of the pulsed radar to enhance its detection performance of small RCS targets. The proposed method depends on acquiring multiple samples per subpulse from the received phase-coded signal and two coherent pulse intervals (CPIs) for decision-making. The simulation results are represented to show the provided PG to the system. Moreover, the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation results and the utilized resources of the suggested algorithm are shown to demonstrate the superiority of our technique compared to other conventional methods.