Chapter C-XV-1 Complementary Waveforms for Sidelobe Suppression and Radar Polarimetry

Advances in active sensing are enabled by the ability to control new degrees of freedom and each new generation of radar platforms requires fundamental advances in radar signal processing [1],[2]. The advent of phased array radars and space-time adaptive processing have given radar designers the ability to make radars adaptable on receive [2]. Modern radars are increasingly being equipped with arbitrary waveform generators which enable transmission of different waveforms across space, time, frequency, and polarization on a pulse-by-pulse basis. The design of waveforms that effectively utilize the degrees of freedom available to current and future generation of radar systems is of fundamental importance. The complexity of the design problem motivates assembly of full waveforms from a number of components with smaller time-bandwidth products and complementary properties. By choosing to separate waveforms in space, time, frequency, polarization, or a combination of these degrees of freedom, we can modularize the design problem. Modularity allows us to first analyze the effect of each control variable in isolation and then integrate across degrees of freedom (e.g., time and polarization) to enable adaptive control of the radar’s operation.