Estimation of Time Parameters of Simple Pulsed Radar Signals Using Instantaneous Power Approximation Methods

Abstract

The dynamic nature of threats associated with electronic warfare (EW) requires state-of-the-art algorithms to cater for these threats. In recent times, electronic intelligence (ELINT) is being used to solve this challenge in various subfields. This paper presents an ELINT system which is used to determine the identity of captured radar signals through the use of instantaneous power (IP). The IP was obtained via three approaches which are used to estimate the basic time-parameters (pulse width (PW) and pulse repetition period (PRP)) of the simple pulsed radar signal. The simple pulsed radar signal is characterize by constant time parameters and a sinusoidal modulation of constant frequency. The three approaches employed involved two approximate methods such as time-marginal and maxima of a modified version of the Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) and while the last is the conventional way of getting instantaneous power using the conjugate version of the signal. The method of analysis is validated using an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) at various signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and selected threshold values of 25%, 37.5 %, and 50%. The results obtained show that the IP obtained directly is the most versatile method as accurate PW and PRP estimation were obtained at SNR of -15 dB at different threshold values while approximate method via the maxima of WVDis the best method with a lower minimum SNR of -18 dB at threshold value of 37.5%. The latter case therefore allows for usage of WVDfor other parameters estimation in the field without developing another separate signal processing method for time parameter estimation.