Design and performances evaluation of new Costas-based radar waveforms with pulse coding diversity

Costas codes are a variant of pulse compression waveforms, largely studied for their attractive time-frequency properties. Their 'thumbtack-like' ambiguity function (AF) makes them highly suitable for delay and Doppler estimation, in radar and sonar applications. However, this behaviour depends heavily on the length of the code: the improvement in delay-Doppler resolutions and AF sidelobes level needs an increase in the size of the code. In this study, designs that allow good performance without increasing the size of the code are proposed. They are based on a modification of Costas codes by widening frequency separation between hops and replacing rectangular pulses by other waveforms. This will lead to a removal of autocorrelation function grating lobes that normally appear when frequency separation is increased. The originality of the work lies in the proposal of diversified pulse waveforms, such as phase codes, Slepian sequences, and other Costas codes, to encode main Costas pulses. A performance comparison of the proposed approaches is supplied. Such waveforms could also be of interest for applications where waveform diversity is desired

Nonlinear Suppression of Range Ambiguity in Pulse Doppler Radar

Coherent pulse train processing is most commonly used in airborne pulse Doppler radar, achieving adequate transmitter/receiver isolation and excellent resolution properties while inherently inducing ambiguities in Doppler and range. First introduced by Palermo in 1962 using two conjugate LFM pulses, the primary nonlinear suppression objective involves reducing range ambiguity, given the waveform is nominally unambiguous in Doppler, by using interpulse and intrapulse coding (pulse compression) to discriminate received ambiguous pulse responses. By introducing a nonlinear operation on compressed (undesired) pulse responses within individual channels, ambiguous energy levels are reduced in channel outputs. This research expands the NLS concept using discrete coding and processing. A general theory is developed showing how NLS accomplishes ambiguity surface volume removal without requiring orthogonal coding. Useful NLS code sets are generated using combinatorial, simulated annealing optimization techniques - a general algorithm is developed to extended family size, code length, and number of phases (polyphase coding). An adaptive reserved code thresholding scheme is introduced to efficiently and effectively track the matched filter response of a target field over a wide dynamic range, such as normally experienced in airborne radar systems. An evaluation model for characterizing NLS clutter suppression performance is developed - NLS performance is characterized using measured clutter data with analysis indicating the proposed technique performs relatively well even when large clutter cells exist

Effects of carrier frequency accuracy on quasi-synchronous, multicarrier DS-CDMA communications using optimized sequences

It is known that the multiple access interference (MAI) of a quasi-synchronous (QS) multicarrier direct signal code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system can be substantially reduced by using signature sequences having optimized cross correlation at small shifts around the origin. This paper shows that the time-frequency cross correlation function rather than the usual (time-domain) cross correlation determines the MAI when the system is operated in the presence of carrier frequency offset (CFO), which arises due to the frequency-accuracy limit of the oscillator. Several known sets of sequences having optimized time-domain cross correlation are investigated for their MAI-minimization capabilities in the presence of CFO. It is found that: i) a system using Walsh codes or Suehiro-Hatori polyphase sequences can be driven into outage as a result of significant worst-case MAI and ii) it is possible to minimize the MAI for systems using preferentially phased Gold codes cyclic-shift m-sequences or Lin-Chang sequences only if the product of chip period and maximum frequency deviation is less than around 0.01. Implications of these findings to practical implementation of systems are discussed.published_or_final_versio

New Approaches to Pulse Compression Techniques of Phase-Coded Waveforms in Radar

The present thesis aims to make an in-depth study of Radar pulse compression, Neural Networks and Phase coded pulse compression codes. Pulse compression is a method which combines the high energy of a longer pulse width with the high resolution of a narrow pulse width. The major aspects that are considered for a pulse compression technique are signal to sidelobe ratio (SSR) performance, noise performance and Doppler shift performance. Matched filtering of biphase coded radar signals create unwanted sidelobes which may mask important information. The adaptive filtering techniques like Least Mean Square (LMS), Recursive Least Squares (RLS), and modified RLS algorithms are used for pulse radar detection and the results are compared. In this thesis, a novel approach for pulse compression using Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is proposed. The 13-bit and 35-bit barker codes are used as signal codes to RNN and results are compared with Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) network. RNN yields better signal-to-sidelobe ratio (SSR), error convergence speed, noise performance, range resolution ability and Doppler shift performance than neural network (NN) and some traditional algorithms like auto correlation function(ACF) algorithm. But the SSR obtained from RNN is less for most of the applications. Hence a Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network is implemented which yields better convergence speed, higher SSRs in adverse situations of noise and better robustness in Doppler shift tolerance than MLP and ACF algorithm. There is a scope of further improvement in performance in terms of SSR, error convergence speed, and Doppler shift. A novel approach using Recurrent RBF is proposed for pulse radar detection, and the results are compared with RBF, MLP and ACF. Biphase codes, namely barker codes are used as inputs to all these neural networks. The disadvantages of biphase codes include high sidelobes and poor Doppler tolerance. The Golay complementary codes have zero sidelobes but they are poor Doppler tolerant as that of biphase codes. The polyphase codes have low sidelobes and are more Doppler tolerant than biphase codes. The polyphase codes namely Frank, P1, P2, P3, P4 codes are described in detail and autocorrelation outputs, phase values and their Doppler properties are discussed and compared. The sidelobe reduction techniques such as single Two Sample Sliding Window Adder (TSSWA) and double TSSWA after the autocorrelator output are discussed and their performances for P4 code are presented and compared. Weighting techniques can also be applied to substantially reduce the range time sidelobes. The weighting functions such as Kaiser-Bessel amplitude weighting function and classical amplitude weighting functions (i.e. Hamming window) are described and are applied to the receiver waveform of 100 element P4 code and the autocorrelation outputs, Peak Sidelobe Level (PSL), Integrated Sidelobe Level (ISL) values are compared with that of rectangular window. The effects of weighting on the Doppler performance of the P4 code are presented and compared

Design of sequences with good correlation properties

This thesis is dedicated to exploring sequences with good correlation properties. Periodic sequences with desirable correlation properties have numerous applications in communications. Ideally, one would like to have a set of sequences whose out-of-phase auto-correlation magnitudes and cross-correlation magnitudes are very small, preferably zero. However, theoretical bounds show that the maximum magnitudes of auto-correlation and cross-correlation of a sequence set are mutually constrained, i.e., if a set of sequences possesses good auto-correlation properties, then the cross-correlation properties are not good and vice versa. The design of sequence sets that achieve those theoretical bounds is therefore of great interest. In addition, instead of pursuing the least possible correlation values within an entire period, it is also interesting to investigate families of sequences with ideal correlation in a smaller zone around the origin. Such sequences are referred to as sequences with zero correlation zone or ZCZ sequences, which have been extensively studied due to their applications in 4G LTE and 5G NR systems, as well as quasi-synchronous code-division multiple-access communication systems. Paper I and a part of Paper II aim to construct sequence sets with low correlation within a whole period. Paper I presents a construction of sequence sets that meets the Sarwate bound. The construction builds a connection between generalised Frank sequences and combinatorial objects, circular Florentine arrays. The size of the sequence sets is determined by the existence of circular Florentine arrays of some order. Paper II further connects circular Florentine arrays to a unified construction of perfect polyphase sequences, which include generalised Frank sequences as a special case. The size of a sequence set that meets the Sarwate bound, depends on a divisor of the period of the employed sequences, as well as the existence of circular Florentine arrays. Paper III-VI and a part of Paper II are devoted to ZCZ sequences. Papers II and III propose infinite families of optimal ZCZ sequence sets with respect to some bound, which are used to eliminate interference within a single cell in a cellular network. Papers V, VI and a part of Paper II focus on constructions of multiple optimal ZCZ sequence sets with favorable inter-set cross-correlation, which can be used in multi-user communication environments to minimize inter-cell interference. In particular, Paper~II employs circular Florentine arrays and improves the number of the optimal ZCZ sequence sets with optimal inter-set cross-correlation property in some cases.Doktorgradsavhandlin

Code design and analysis for multiple access communications

This thesis explores various coding aspects of multiple access communications, mainly for spread spectrum multiaccess(SSMA) communications and collaborative coding multiaccess(CCMA) communications. Both the SSMA and CCMA techniques permit efficient simultaneous transmission by several users sharing a common channel, without subdivision in time or frequency. The general principle behind these two multiaccess schemes is that one can find sets of signals (codes) which can be combined together to form a composite signal; on reception, the individual signals in the set can each be recovered from the composite signal. For the CCMA scheme, the isolation between users is based on the code structure; for the SSMA scheme, on the other hand, the isolation between users is based on the autocorrelation functions(ACFs) and crosscorrelation functions (CCFs) of the code sequences. It is clear that, in either case, the code design is the key to the system design.For the CCMA system with a multiaccess binary adder channel, a class of superimposed codes is analyzed. It is proved that every constant weight code of weight w and maximal correlation λ corresponds to a subclass of disjunctive codes of order T 3, the out-of-phase ACFs and CCFs of the codes are constant and equal to √L. In addition, all codes of the same length are mutually orthogonal.2. Maximal length sequences (m-sequences) over Gaussian integers, suitable for use with QAM modulation, are considered. Two sub-classes of m-sequences with quasi-perfect periodic autocorrelations are obtained. The CCFs between the decimated m-sequences are studied. By applying a simple operation, it is shown that some m-sequences over rational and Gaussian integers can be transformed into perfect sequences with impulsive ACFs.3. Frank codes and Chu codes have perfect periodic ACFs and optimum periodic CCFs. In addition, it is shown that they also have very favourable nonperiodic ACFs; some new results concerning the behaviour of the nonperiodic ACFs are derived. Further, it is proved that the sets of combinedFrank/Chu codes, which contain a larger number of codes than either of the two constituent sets, also have very good periodic CCFs. Based on Frank codes and Chu codes, two interesting classes of real-valued codes with good correlation properties are defined. It is shown that these codes have periodic complementary properties and good periodic and nonperiodic ACF/CCFs.Finally, a hybrid CCMA/SSMA coding scheme is proposed. This new hybrid coding scheme provides a very flexible and powerful multiple accessing capability and allows simple and efficient decoding. Given an SSMA system with K users and a CCMA system with N users, where at most T users are active at any time, then the hybrid system will have K . N users with at most T.K users active at any time. The hybrid CCMA/SSMA coding scheme is superior to the individual CCMA system or SSMA system in terms of information rate, number of users, decoding complexity and external interference rejection capability