Matched illumination radar involving synthetic aperture and synthetic pulse for signal to clutter enhancement

The concept of matched illumination is discussed for radar systems employing multiple frequencies (synthetic pulse) and multiple antennas (synthetic antenna). Improved signal to noise and signal to clutter performance is achieved by tayloring the illuminating waveform to the propagation medium and target scattering characteristics. The methods discussed are wavefield matching, frequency and antenna diversity and /spl Delta/K processing. Furthermore, bistatic geometries are analysed and found to give a much improved detection capability for low observable targets.