Synthetic software defined radar (Conference Presentation)

A method for synthesizing any radar signal via post-processing is proposed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally for both pulsed and linear frequency modulated signals. The method does not require transmitting the investigated signal, nor does it require any hardware reconfiguration (such as fully programmable gate arrays), in contrast with ordinary software defined radars. Instead, the method is based on transmitting the ‘stepped frequency continuous wave' signal with a device such as a network analyzer. By obtaining the frequency response in the desired bandwidth (S-parameters), signal-specific digital filters can be applied in order to obtain the response of any other signal. By transforming the filtered frequency response into the time domain, the ordinary processing of such signals can take place in the digital domain. The advantages of different signals can therefore be used by a single optimized chip, simply by swapping its software.