Radar Range Sidelobe Reduction Using Adaptive Pulse Compression Technique

Pulse compression has been widely used in radars so that low-power, long RF pulses can be transmitted, rather than a high-power short pulse. Pulse compression radars offer a number of advantages over high-power short pulsed radars, such as no need of highpower RF circuitry, no need of high-voltage electronics, compact size and light weight, better range resolution, and better reliability. However, range sidelobe associated with pulse compression has prevented the use of this technique on spaceborne radars since surface returns detected by range sidelobes may mask the returns from a nearby weak cloud or precipitation particles. Research on adaptive pulse compression was carried out utilizing a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) waveform generation board and a radar transceiver simulator. The results have shown significant improvements in pulse compression sidelobe performance.