Signal Acquisition and Parameter Estimation of Radio Frequency Pulse Radar Using Novel Method

This paper introduces a new functional architecture, together with a direct and efficient method of estimating signal parameters of a single pulse radar, in an electronic warfare digital receiver. The implemented architecture consists of three main units connected through different buffer hierarchy. These units are: Data acquisition and pre-processing unit; data analysis and radar parameter estimation unit; and the human computer interface unit. These units, invoked independently, allowed simple algorithms to be executed concurrently. In the data acquisition unit, the signal is digitized continuously after it is down converted into intermediate frequency signal. This signal is then converted into a video signal which stores radar pulse data upon signal existence. A double threshold noise gate is deployed, together with moving average sampling filter, to refine incoming data steam and avoid multi-triggering problem. In the data analysis unit, the processed radar signal parameters are estimated. This includes the estimation of intermediate -frequency, pulse width, time of arrival, time of departure, pulse repetition interval and pulse amplitude.