Minimizing Time Sidelobes with Pulse Compression

1. What does pulse compression do?
2. What is time Sidelobe?
3. How do you calculate pulse compression ratio?
4. Are Sidelobes desirable in primary radar?

What does pulse compression do?

Pulse compression allows a radar system to transmit a pulse of relatively long duration and low peak power to attain the range resolution and detection performance of a short-pulse, high-peak power system.

What is time Sidelobe?

Range-time sidelobes are the result of convolving the radar return with the non-ideal filter response (i.e some energy remains outside the desired pulse bandwidth). This results in the “blurring” of returns in range near high reflectivity gradients, like ground clutter.

How do you calculate pulse compression ratio?

The received signal is passed through a matched filter to produce a compressed pulse of width 1/B. The pulse compression ratio, which is the duration of the long pulse divided by the duration of the short (compressed) pulse, is equal to BT.

Are Sidelobes desirable in primary radar?

The sides lobes are an important parameter and techniques in a radar system are used to reduce these such as amplitude weighting. So in the radar system they are not desirable, and reducing to a minimum is important.