An Integrated Framework for Complex Radar System Design

Modern radar systems are complex and depend heavily on advanced signal processing algorithms to improve their detection performance. At the same time, the radio front-end must meet challenging specifications with a combination of available components, implementation technologies, regulatory constraints, requirements from the system, and signal processing. This application example shows how NI's Visual System Simulator™ (VSS) system simulation software enables radar system architects and RF component manufacturers to design, validate, and prototype a radar system.

The project in this example, Pulse_Doppler_Radar_System.emp, illustrates key models and simulation capabilities available for practical radar design. The project and resulting measurements highlight how to configure a pulse-Doppler (PD) radar and set up the simulation to obtain the metrics of interest for radar development. The entire PD radar system project includes a linear FM (LFM) chirp signal generator, RF transmitter, antennas, clutter, RF receiver, moving target detector (MTD), constant false alarm rate (CFAR) processor, and signal detector for simulation purposes.