Nonlinear Techniques for Impulse Radar Electronic Support Measures (ESM)

Impulse response radars present a major detection problem for current and developmental Electronic Support Measure (ESM) receivers. These signals are characterized by short pulse durations and wide bandwidths, for which current and developmental ESM receivers are not optimized. Detection and characterization of received radar impulses would enable classification of the emitting radar source, including measurement of pulsewidth and pulse repetition frequency. Dynetics proposes a novel nonlinear signal processing approach to solve the impulse and ultra-wide-band radar detection problem. Specific advantages of nonlinear approaches are: 1. Narrowband signals from a dense signal environment are removed prior to pulse detection, 2. Input signal-to-noise ration (SNR) is not degraded, and 3. Pulse detection is performed in the time domain (SNR optimized). To analyze linear and nonlinear detection algorithms, Dynetics has developed an ESM computer simulation. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the benefits of this type of impulse detection. Specific issues to be resolved during Phase I include assessing intercept receiver requirements, specification of nonlinear processing techniques for the detection, characterization, and direction finding of impulse radars, and selection of an optimal approach. In addition, a preliminary design and analysis of the optimal ESM receiver will be performed.