Detection of high-speed and accelerated target based on the linear frequency modulation radar

Abstract

The high-speed movement of a target may cause range migration and Doppler frequency migration of the radar echo, which has a serious impact on the detection performance of the radar. To resolve the problem of detecting a high-speed target in linear frequency modulation radar, this study analyses the effect on the integration gain caused by range migration and Doppler frequency migration, and proposes a corresponding compensation method according to the different input signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of the echo signal. To compensate for range migration in high SNRs, two-dimensional median filtering and constant false alarm rate technology are combined to estimate the speed. For low SNRs, based on coarse valuations, the authors use the discrete Fourier transformation (DFT) to realise the fractional delay cell to improve speed accuracy. Furthermore, to compensate for Doppler frequency migration, an instantaneous cross-correlation method is proposed for high SNRs, which is combined with the fractional Fourier transform method to estimate the acceleration for low SNRs. The input SNR threshold for the different algorithms is then analysed using simulation data, and the theoretical reference value is shown. Finally, the study verifies the effectiveness of the proposed methods through simulation and measured data. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013.