Exploiting the Low Doppler Tolerance of Noise Radar to Perform Precise Velocity Measurements on a Short Set of Data

Abstract

The extraction of velocity information from radar data by means of the Doppler effect is the driving factor for the investigations presented in this paper. A method for the quantification of the Doppler tolerance in continuous emission (CE) noise radar is introduced, addressing a current lack in literature within the frame of CE noise radars. It is shown that noise radar is highly sensitive to the Doppler effect, an issue that often results in a low Doppler tolerance especially for long coherent integration intervals. In general, the Doppler sensitivity is considered as a drawback but, in this paper, along with the absence of range-Doppler coupling in noise radar, it is turned into an advantage allowing for a very precise Doppler estimation. This new signal processing approach for Doppler extraction is detailed and its feasibility is proven on the basis of experimental data. The presented method requires much less data, i.e., target illumination time, than conventional Doppler analyses and, therefore, is beneficial in terms of radar resource management.