Phase Noise Modeling and its Effects on the Performance of Some Radar Signal Processors

Random and unwanted fluctuations, that perturb the phase of an ideal reference sinusoidal signal, may cause significant performance degradation in radar systems exploiting coherent integration techniques. To quantify the resulting performance loss, we develop a fast-time/slow-time data matrix radar signal representation, modeling the undesired phase fluctuations via multivariate circular distributions and describing the phase noise Power Spectral Density (PSD) through a composite power-law model. Hence, we accurately predict the performance degradation experienced by Moving Target Indication (MTI) algorithms for clutter cancellation, providing a closed form expression for the improvement factor I. The subsequent analysis shows that phase noise affects I directly through its Characteristic Function (CF). Additionally, I shares a robust behavior with respect to the actual phase noise multivariate circular distribution, as long as the phase noise PSD correctly represents the available measurements.