FPGA Based RADAR Signal Emulator for Signal Processing Test Applications

The RADARs use complex techniques such as stagger PRI, jitter PRI with frequency agile characteristics. The frequency agile RADARs switch frequencies with in a pulse to get different types of advantages. Today lot of RADAR signal processing takes place on FPGA platform. These signal processing algorithms include pulse parameters estimation, deinterleaving of mixed pulse patterns, processing complex chirp signals etc. All these algorithms need to be tested at various levels before they get integrated in to final system. The development consists of waveform generation for RADARs. The control logic communicates with PC using serial port to capture the parameters set by the user in PC. These parameters are loaded into respective source simulator modules. Each source simulator module consists of NCO for digital carrier generation and pulse modulator. The NCO is programmable to generate all types of frequency agile signals in real time. Top module consists of all these blocks and will be synthesized to Xilinx FPGAs. KeywordsNCO, baseband waveform generator, Upconversion, BITE generator and FPGA.