Noise Radar Design based on FPGA Technology: On-Board Digital Waveform Generation and Real-time Correlation Processing

The results on the use of arbitrary waveform generators that are based on FPGA technology for generation of complex signals in modern noise radars are presented. On the basis of these devices we propose a radar scheme with digital generation of noise waveforms for both sounding signal and reference and analog processing. Experimental results show efficiency of FPGA-based application in radar with variety of sounding waveforms. Multichannel time integrating correlator has been implemented in FPGA Xilinx Virtex 6 using X6-1000M board from Innovative Integration Inc. The developed correlator has a performance sufficient for design of noise radar according to the software defined radar concept for short-range applications, such as homeland security sensors, ground based SAR, and radar tomography enabling generation of 2D and 3D coherent SAR images and radiofilms.