Whole system radar modelling: Simulation and validation

Jithin Kannanthara*, Darren Griffiths, Mohammed Jahangir, Jonathan M. Jones, Chris J. Baker, Michail Antoniou, Colin J. Bell, Kai Bongs, Yeshpal Singh, Henry J White

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

The ever-expanding horizon of radar applications demands solutions with high-end radar functionalities and technologies and is often limited by the available radar equipment, cost and time. A practical method to tackle the situation is to rely on the modelling and simulation of radar systems based on the user requirements. The comprehensive system-level modelling of a pulsed Doppler radar in MATLAB/Simulink consisting of all the fundamental blocks in the transmit chain, the environment, the receive chain, and the data processing chain is presented in this article. The first half of the article discusses the high-fidelity simulation of each building block in the radar model. In the second half of the article, the range-Doppler plot generated from the high-fidelity radar model is compared and validated using the range-Doppler plot from a real radar trial. The radar phase noise plays a crucial role in the detection of slowly moving, low radar cross-section targets in the presence of strong clutter. The article also briefly discusses the effects of radar oscillator phase noise in the range-Doppler plot. The validated, fully flexible radar model has the advantage of supporting the addition of further building blocks and optimising the parameters based on user requirements.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1050-1060
Number of pages11
JournalIET Radar, Sonar & Navigation
Volume17
Issue number6
Early online date30 Mar 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgments:
This work was partly supported by the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensing and Timing (Project EP/T001046/1), European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (820404—IQ clock project), and BAE Systems I-CASE PhD. The authors would also like to thank Bill Stafford and Caitlin Percy (ex-members of BAE systems). Additionally, the authors would also like to thank Stephen Harman (Aveillant) and Aveillant Ltd.

Keywords

  • Doppler radar
  • modelling
  • Oscillators
  • phase noise
  • radar signal processing
  • thermal noise

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