Knowledge-based signal processing for radar ESM systems

Radar electronic support measures (ESM) systems perform the functions of threat detection and area surveillance to determine the identity and bearing of surrounding radar emitters. Automatic ESM systems incorporate a passive receiver to measure the parameters of detected radar pulses and an automatic processor to rapidly sort pulses and identify the emitters. The authors discuss the role of knowledge-based signal processing methods and how they may be applied to the key ESM signal-processing functions of deinterleaving, merge and emitter identification. ESM processors are required to sort input pulse data streams exceeding one million pulses per second and minimise the reporting latency of new emitters. They further discuss the requirements to achieve real-time operation of knowledge-based ESM processing techniques