Robust mismatched filtering algorithm for passive bistatic radar using worst-case performance optimization

Passive bistatic radar detects targets by exploiting available local broadcasters and communication transmissions as illuminators, which are not designed for radar. The signal usually contains a time-varying structure, which may result in high-level range ambiguity sidelobes. Because the mismatched filter is effective in suppressing sidelobes, it can be used in a passive bistatic radar. However, due to the low signal-to-noise ratio in the reference signal, the sidelobe suppression performance seriously degrades in a passive bistatic radar system. To solve this problem, a novel mismatched filtering algorithm is developed using worst-case performance optimization. In this algorithm, the influence of the low energy level in the reference signal is taken into consideration, and a new cost function is built based on worst-case performance optimization. With this optimization, the mismatched filter weights can be obtained by minimizing the total energy of the ambiguity range sidelobes. Quantitative evaluations and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can realize sidelobe suppression when there is a low-energy reference signal. Its effectiveness is proved using real data.

Ambiguity function analysis and side peaks suppression of Link16 signal based passive radar

Link16 data link is the communication standard of the joint tactical information distribution system(JTIDS)used by the U.S.military and North Atlantic Treaty Organization,which is applied as the opportunistic illuminator for passive radar in this paper.The time-domain expression of the Link16 signal is established,and its ambiguity function expression is derived.The timedelay dimension and Doppler dimension side peaks of which lead to the appearance of the false target during target detection.To solve the problem,the time-delay dimension and Doppler dimension side peaks suppression methods are proposed.For the problem that the conventional mismatched filter(MMF)cannot suppress the time-delay dimension side peaks,a neighborhood MMF(NMMF)is proposed.Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Target detection method in passive bistatic radar

Owing to the advantages in detecting the low altitude and stealth target,passive bistatic radar(PBR)has received much attention in surveillance purposes.Due to the uncontrollable characteristic of the transmitted signal,a high level range or Doppler sidelobes may exist in the ambiguity function which will degrade the target detection performance.Mismatched filtering is a common method to deal with the ambiguity sidelobe problem.However,when mismatched filtering is applied,sidelobes cannot be eliminated completely.The residual sidelobes will cause false-alarm when the constant false alarm ratio(CFAR)is applied.To deal with this problem,a new target detection method based on preprocessing is proposed.In this new method,the ambiguity range and Doppler sidelobes are recognized and eliminated by the preprocessing method according to the prior information.CFAR is also employed to obtain the information of the target echo.Simulation results and results on real data illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Performance improvement of magneto-acousto-electrical tomography for biological tissues with sinusoid-Barker coded excitation

By combining magnetics, acoustics and electrics, the magneto-acoustic-electrical tomography（MAET） proves to possess the capability of differentiating electrical impedance variation and thus improving the spatial resolution. However,the signal-to-noise ratio（SNR） of the collected MAET signal is still unsatisfactory for biological tissues with low-level electrical conductivity. In this study, the formula of MAET measurement with sinusoid-Barker coded excitation is derived and simplified for a planar piston transducer. Numerical simulations are conducted for a four-layered gel phantom with the 13-bit sinusoid-Barker coded excitation, and the performances of wave packet recovery with side-lobe suppression are improved by using the mismatched compression filter, which is also demonstrated by experimentally measuring a three-layered gel phantom. It is demonstrated that comparing with the single-cycle sinusoidal excitation, the amplitude of the driving signal can be reduced greatly with an SNR enhancement of 10 dB using the 13-bit sinusoid-Barker coded excitation. The amplitude and polarity of the wave packet filtered from the collected MAET signal can be used to achieve the conductivity derivative at the tissue boundary. In this study, we apply the sinusoid-Barker coded modulation method and the mismatched suppression scheme to MAET measurement to ensure the safety for biological tissues with improved SNR and spatial resolution, and suggest the potential applications in biomedical imaging.