Designing Pseudo-Random Staggered PRI Sequences

In uniform pulse-Doppler radar, there is a well known trade-off between unambiguous Doppler and unambiguous range. Pulse repetition interval (PRI) staggering, a technique that involves modulating the interpulse times, addresses this trade-space allowing for expansion of the unambiguous Doppler domain with little range swath incursion. Random PRI staggering provides additional diversity, but comes at the cost of increased Doppler sidelobes. Thus, careful PRI sequence design is required to avoid spurious sidelobe peaks that could result in false alarms.

In this thesis, two random PRI stagger models are defined and compared, and sidelobe peak mitigation is discussed. First, the co-array concept (borrowed from the intuitively related field of sparse array design in the spatial domain) is utilized to examine the effect of redundancy on sidelobe peaks for random PRI sequences. Then, a sidelobe peak suppression technique is introduced that involves a gradient-based optimization of the random PRI sequences, producing pseudo-random sequences that are shown to significantly reduce spurious Doppler sidelobes in both simulation and experimentally.