Pulse-Doppler Signal Processing with Quadrature Compressive Sampling

TL;DR

This paper introduces a compressive sampling scheme for pulse-Doppler radars that operates at sub-Nyquist rates, enabling effective Doppler and range estimation without full Nyquist sampling, thus reducing computational load.

Contribution

It develops a novel CoSaPD processing scheme that performs Doppler and range estimation directly on sub-Nyquist samples, avoiding the need to recover Nyquist data.

Findings

Achieves comparable performance to classic Nyquist-based processing at one-eighth the sampling rate.

Reduces computational load through sparse recovery algorithms for range estimation.

Maintains high detection probability at SNR above -25dB.

Abstract

Quadrature compressive sampling (QuadCS) is a newly introduced sub-Nyquist sampling for acquiring inphase and quadrature (I/Q) components of radio-frequency signals. For applications to pulse-Doppler radars, the QuadCS outputs can be arranged in 2-dimensional data similar to that by Nyquist sampling. This paper develops a compressive sampling pulse-Doppler (CoSaPD) processing scheme from the sub-Nyquist samples. The CoSaPD scheme follows Doppler estimation/detection and range estimation and is conducted on the sub-Nyquist samples without recovering the Nyquist samples. The Doppler estimation is realized through spectrum analyzer as in classic processing. The detection is done on the Doppler bin data. The range estimation is performed through sparse recovery algorithms on the detected targets and thus the computational load is reduced. The detection threshold can be set at a low value for improving detection probability and then the introduced false targets are removed in the range estimation stage through inherent detection characteristic in the recovery algorithms. Simulation results confirm our findings. The CoSaPD scheme with the data at one eighth the Nyquist rate and for SNR above -25dB can achieve performance of the classic processing with Nyquist samples.