Timing jitter characterization for pulsed and pulsed Doppler radars

The author presents a characterization of timing jitter in terms of its impact on the frequency spectrum at the output of the sampler, or range gate, in a pulsed or pulsed Doppler radar signal processing chain. Two manifestations of timing jitter are considered. One of these is where timing jitter causes variations in the position of the transmitted pulse or the times at which the matched filter output is sampled. The second is where timing jitter affects the width of the transmitted pulse. The specific portion of the radar signal processing chain considered is the matched filter and sampler. The spectrum of interest is that at the output of the sampler, which is characterized in terms of the autocorrelation of the timing jitter. Explicit formulations are derived for the case where the timing jitter is independent from pulse to pulse.<>