Implementation of Stepped Frequency Modulation Pulse Compression on NI Suite

Abstract

In Radars and Sonar, the pulse compression technique is used continuously to increase the range resolution, range detection and the signal-to noise ratio (SNR). This can be achieved by modulating the transmitted pulse and then correlating it to the received pulse with the transmitted signal. This transforms short pulse into long pulse and is used to increase long pulse bandwidth by some form of modulation such as linear frequency modulation (LFM), so that Range Resolution is not compromised. The proposed Stepped Frequency Modulation (SFM) is a common Pulse Compression Method, which is useful to increase the Radar Range Resolution without losing the capability of target detection. Step Frequency Continuous Wave (SFCW) is also one of the techniques used in the Pulse Compression Technique, where the return echo step is used to determine range and is used for different purposes. This type of setup is widely used in RADAR design and testing. This Paper proposes the implementation of various Modulation techniques such as LFM, SFM and SFCW for proposed Stepped frequency Modulation using NI suite hardware PXI system which has a configurable FPGA and RF front end to generate custom waveform in wide range of frequencies with bandwidth up to 1GHz design and testing.