Estimation of time-parameters of Barker binary phase coded radar signal using instantaneous power based methods

Abstract

This paper deals with analysis of the Barker binary phase radar signal as part of ways to counteract upcoming threats in the field of electronic warfare support (ES) system. The ES part of electronic warfare (EW) provides tactical support by providing key information to other sections responsible for providing response in the form of attack and protection. The analysis of this paper focused on the correct estimation of the basic time parameters (pulse width and pulse repetition period) of this radar signal using instantaneous power obtained from the time-marginal of the time-frequency distribution (TFD), the maxima (power) of the TFD and directly from the product of signal. The main TFD is a modified version of the most common quadratic TFD (QTFD), the Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) using appropriately chosen separable kernels. This analysis and estimation method developed is tested in the presence of white noise of Gaussian probability density function at different signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Results obtained show that instantaneous power gotten from the maxima of TFD outshines the other methods with a minimum SNR of ‒14 dB when the specific threshold of 37.5% is used. It also shows that the proposed methods chosen outperform previous works of similar objectives and therefore, making it suitable for practical EW systems.