Autocorrelation Techniques for Wideband Detection of FH/DS Waveforms in Random Tone Interference

A technique for detecting hybrid frequency-hopping/direct-sequence low-probability-of-intercept signals in random tone interference is presented and analyzed. It is assumed that the interference is sufficiently random (arbitrary number of tones, frequencies, phase, etc.) in each hop interval that notch filtering is impossible. The key element is the use of real-time autocorrelation devices. It is shown that, compared to the unacceptably poor performance of a radiometer, almost perfect performance can be achieved in the absence of thermal noise. Simulation results are also presented which give excellent support to this theory.