SBIR-STTR Award

he overall objective of this proposal is to develop an approach to improve transmitter stability in order to improve radar clutter suppression performance. One approach is to develop an algorithm to effectively 'equalize' out the instability characteristics of the transmitter. This requires sampling of each transmitted pulse, and real-time development of an equalizer filter to be applied to each pulse. A viable solution has been proposed in work performed by NRL. The specific equalizer design approach taken in this work is a frequency domain approach which uses the transmitter samples to generate filter coefficients that yield the ideal matched filter response when the returns are applied. While it is effective in removing the effects of transmitter instability, it assumes a high SNR on the transmitter sample to achieve the best performance. BCI proposes the use of a MMSE equalizer to achieve a more optimal set of coefficients that allow for the removal of the effects of transmitter instability at various SNRs.

Keywords:
Radar Stability, Mti Radar, Transmitter Noise, Noice Cancellation, Adaptive Cancellation, Pulse Doppler

Recently, the Navy has seen a shift from open-ocean or “blue-water” operations to littoral or “brown-water” operations, with warships operating close to shore in high clutter environments. The TNC filter provides a low cost solution CIF improvement. This technology is applicable to several radar families that are fielded and in development. Phase II of the program will focus on characterizing and improving the robustness of the TNC algorithm for a specific radar system and developing the software and hardware for prototype testing of the algorithm. An error framework model will be used to add radar-specific error sources to the TNC algorithm. The MATLAB® model will be optimized for performance in the presence of these errors. A software model and interface board will be developed for integration with the target radar in the final option. Field experiments will be conducted to verify the performance of enhancements to the filter.

Keywords:
Mti Stability, Noise Cancellation, Clutter Improvement, Cross Field Amplifier Noise