Introduction to Noise Radar and Its Waveforms

In the system-level design for both conventional radars and noise radars, a fundamental element is the use of waveforms suited to the particular application. In the military arena, low probability of intercept (LPI) and of exploitation (LPE) by the enemy are required, while in the civil context, the spectrum occupancy is a more and more important requirement, because of the growing request by non-radar applications; hence, a plurality of nearby radars may be obliged to transmit in the same band. All these requirements are satisfied by noise radar technology. After an overview of the main noise radar features and design problems, this paper summarizes recent developments in “tailoring” pseudo-random sequences plus a novel tailoring method aiming for an increase of detection performance whilst enabling to produce a (virtually) unlimited number of noise-like waveforms usable in different applications.