A Compressed Sensing Parameter Extraction Platform for Radar Pulse Signal Acquisition

Abstract

In this paper we present a complete (hardware/ software) sub-Nyquist rate (× 13) wideband signal acquisition chain capable of acquiring radar pulse parameters in an instantaneous bandwidth spanning 100 MHz-2.5 GHz with the equivalent of 8 effective number of bits (ENOB) digitizing performance. The approach is based on the alternative sensing-paradigm of compressed sensing (CS). The hardware platform features a fully-integrated CS receiver architecture named the random-modulation preintegrator (RMPI) fabricated in Northrop Grumman's 450 nm InP HBT bipolar technology. The software back-end consists of a novel CS parameter recovery algorithm which extracts information about the signal without performing full time-domain signal reconstruction. This approach significantly reduces the computational overhead involved in retrieving desired information which demonstrates an avenue toward employing CS techniques in power-constrained real-time applications. The developed techniques are validated on CS samples physically measured by the fabricated RMPI and measurement results are presented. The parameter estimation algorithms are described in detail and a complete description of the physical hardware is given.