A comparison of PRN and LFM waveforms and processing in terms of the impact on radar resources

The radar resource impact of using either linear frequency modulation (LFM) or pseudo-random noise (PRN) waveforms is investigated for the case when the radar duty is a limiting factor. It is shown that for large time-bandwidth and low range sidelobe (RSL) requirements, a PRN waveform can be selected that will not increase the radar duty, while LFM will always increase the radar duty. For low time-bandwidth product and moderate RSL requirements LFM will generally have less impact on radar duty than PRN. For moderate time-bandwidth product requirements the impact will be scenario dependent and the difference in radar duty may be outweighed by other considerations