Minimal Compression of a Radio-Frequency Pulse

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel RF pulse compression method using QAM and complementary waveform representations, achieving modest compression gains with low-complexity processing for various pulse shapes.

Contribution

It presents a sidelobe-free pulse compression technique applicable to multiple RF pulse shapes, emphasizing low complexity and phase-invariant correlation processing.

Findings

Achieves approximately 2x compression gain.

Applicable to unimodal and bimodal RF pulse shapes.

Enables low-complexity pulse generation and processing.

Abstract

Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and a complementary representation of a causal waveform have been used to develop a sidelobe-free pulse-compression technique. Envelopes of radio-frequency (RF) pulses under study include both unimodal (Laplacian, Gaussian, rectangular) and bimodal (Hermite-Gaussian) shapes. Although the achievable compression gain is small (~2), the generation and phase-invariant correlation processing of such created compressible pulses can be accomplished with the use of low-complexity systems.