Comparison of noise and chirp waveforms for radar target detection in clutter

The use of random noise waveforms is investigated for radar surveillance and their performance is compared with traditional chirp waveforms based on the correlation and relative ratio of received to transmitted powers after reflections from simple targets and terrain. For simple shapes, the correlation of the two signals was similar in value and pattern with respect to the incidence angle. The reflection from terrain clutter gave smaller correlations for the noise waveform indicating that it may be less susceptible to false alarms. Additional simulations were performed for a hummer vehicle target using terrain clutter models to create receiver operating characteristic curves. It was found that the noise waveform performs as well as the chirp for cases of strong clutter response, and much better for cases of weak clutter response.