Analysis of Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) Radar Signals Using Cyclostationary Processing

This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A110704. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: LPI radar is a class of radar systems that possess certain performance characteristics that make them nearly undetectable by today's digital intercept receivers, This presents a significant tactical problem in the battle space To detect these types of radar, new digital receivers that use sophisticated signal processing techniques are required This thesis investigates the use of cyclostationary processing to extract the modulation parameters from a variety of continuous-wave (CW) low-probability-of- intercept (LPI) radar waveforms, The cyclostationary detection techniques described exploit the fact that digital signals vary in time with single or multiple periodicities, because they have spectral correlation, namely, non-zero correlation between certain frequency components, at certain frequency shifts, The use of cyclostationary signal processing in a non-cooperative intercept receiver can help identify the particular emitter and can help develop electronic attacks, LPI CW waveforms examined include Frank codes, polyphase codes (Pt through P4), Frequency Modulated CW (FMCW), Costas frequencies as well as several frequency-shift- keying/phase-shift-keying (FSK/PSK) waveforms It is shown that for signal-to- noise ratios of OdB and -6 dB, the cyclostationary signal processing can extract the modulation parameters necessary in order to distinguish among the various types of LPI modulations.