SOFTWARE DEFINED RADAR AND WAVEFORMS FOR STUDYING MICRO-DOPPLER SIGNATURES

In this paper, we investigate the use of software defined radar (SDR) to analyze the micro-Doppler signatures. The first SDR we use is based on the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) and GNU Radio, and another SDR which has several operation modes is based on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). Typically, the USRP-based SDR is not optimized for radar applications due to its narrow bandwidth and time-varying additional delay caused by USRP components and operating system. The FPGA-based SDR is more suitable for applications where high-resolution range information is required. Our studies indicate that both of the SDR systems are capable of producing the micro-Doppler signatures. System design challenges and measurement results will be discussed in detail.