Ultra-low sidelobe waveform design via spectral shaping and LINC transmit architecture

A new spectral-shaping approach is used to design jointly the amplitude window and phase of a tapered NLFM waveform. This approach can produce physical radar emissions with ultra-low sidelobes that support sufficient spectral roll-off to maintain forthcoming spectral compliance requirements. A small SNR loss is traded for a substantial reduction in range sidelobes. Further, it is demonstrated that this tapered waveform scheme can be readily combined with the linear amplification using nonlinear components (LINC) architecture to realize the small yet necessary amplitude variation while operating the power amplifiers in saturation, which may be used to realize enhanced power efficiency. Experimental measurements demonstrate range sidelobes below -80 dB with less than 0.3 dB in SNR loss.