A Kind of Signal Processing Method for the

Polarization Phased Array Radar

SONG Li-zhong
Postdoctoral Research Station of Electronics Science and
Technology
Harbin Institute of Technology
Heilongjiang Harbin, China
FU Shi-feng
Harbin Institute of Technology (Weihai)

Shandong, Weihai, China

AbstractThis paper discusses a kind of polarization phased
array radar system and its signal processing method. The
polarization signal processing technology is introduced to
improve the detection performance and anti-jamming ability of
the radars. In order to achieve the performance of low
probability of intercept (LPI) for the transmitted signal, the
linear frequency modulation (LFM) is adopted inside each pulse
and the frequency coded technology is adopted among pulses.
The radar system can received the scatted signal of the target
through dual polarization channels simultaneously and the
polarization information of the target scatted signal can be
obtained. In signal processing, the polarization parameter
estimation and polarization detection technology are used. The
basic structure of the polarization phased array radar is
introduced, and the specific LFM pulse compression and
polarization detection method are discussed. The analysis results
in this paper can provide a reference for the design of the
polarization phased array radar.
Keywords-phased array radar; polarization radar; target
detection; interference suppression

INTRODUCTION

Modern radars are faced with complicated

electromagnetic environment, so they should have high
resolution, good anti-jamming ability and low probability
of intercept. The phased array radar is a new kind of radar
system and has good performances including fast beam
scanning, multiple target tracking and good anti-jamming
ability. With development of microwave technology and
signal processing technology, the phased array radars have
been designed and used in many fields[1][2]. At the same
time, the polarization scattering phenomenon appears when
the radar transmitted signal irradiates a target and the target
information such as amplitude, frequency, phase and
polarization are included in the echo signal[3]. The
polarization information is very important for radar target
detection, recognition and interference suppression and so
on. For the polarization detection of radar targets, the
polarization scattering characteristics in different
frequencies is a kind of information which is helpful to
improve the target detection performance and
anti-jamming ability. For example, in [4], the dynamics

QIAO Xiao-lin
Harbin Institute of Technology
Shandong, Weihai, China
WU Qun
Harbin Institute of Technology
Heilongjiang Harbin, China

theory is utilized in the analysis of targets polarization

scattering characteristic in the wide-band polarimetric case,
a new conception of polarization spectrum is presented and
targets signature processing and recognition are
investigated on the basis of polarization spectrum. In [5],
the relationship between targets scattering energy and the
incident polarization is derived on the great circle track on
the Poincare Sphere. Considering the wideband
measurement condition, the conception of energy spectrum
in the polarization domain is defined. On the basis of
energy spectrum, the polarization features of five kinds of
airplane targets are extracted in the wide-band and
polarimetric case, and satisfactory recognition results are
achieved. In [6], based on the wideband polarization radar
system, the concept of the polarization-frequency stability
is defined, and polarization features are extracted in
accordance with the dynamic distribution information of
the polarization state on the Poincare sphere. On this basis,
the identification of five kinds of aircrafts is investigated.
The results show that this method to identify airborne
targets is very effective. From above, we discuss a kind of
dual polarization phased array radar system and proposed a
kind of radar transmitted signal waveform, which adopts
LFM signal inside each pulse and frequency coded signal
among pulses, and polarization information processing
technology is used to improve the target detection
performance. The proposed signal processing method is
helpful to improve the anti-jamming ability of the radar
systems.
THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE POLARIZATION
PHASED ARRAY RADAR
A line phased array radar is considered in this paper, and
assume that the antenna element have two orthogonal
polarization channels and can receive the dual polarization
echo signal simultaneously. The basic structure of the
polarization phased array radar is shown in Figure 1, and the
H and V denote the horizontal and vertical channel
respectively, PA denotes the power amplifier, denotes the
phase shifter and R denotes the radar receiver. Dual
polarization echo signals become digital base band signals
after orthogonal demodulation and sampling and the target
detection and parameter measurement are finished in the
signal processor.

* Project Supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation

978-1-4244-3693-4/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

V1

PA

Vi

Hi

I Q I Q
A/D

A/D

Transmitted Received signal

signal

PA

HM

VM

Transmitted
signal

Normalized amplitude (dB)

H1

Angle ()

Figure 2(c). The patterns at frequency10.1 GHz

Figure 2. The patterns of array factor when the scanning angle is 0 degree

Angle ()
Figure 2(a). The patterns at frequency 10GHz

0
-10
-20
-30
-40

-80

-60

-40

-20

20

40

60

80

Angle ()

Normalized amplitude (dB)

Figure 3(a). The patterns at frequency 10GHz

0
-10
-20
-30
-40

-80

-60

-40

-20

20

40

60

80

Angle ()
Figure 3(b). The patterns at frequency 9.9GHz

Normalized amplitude (dB)

Normalized amplitude (dB)

According to the polarization scattering features, the

polarization state of transmitted signal is determined. At
the same time, the carrier frequency of radar signal can be
selected from f1 and f2, and can be changed among pulses,
so the radiation pattern of the antenna array should be
considered. Assume that the working frequency is 10 GHz,
the number of antenna elements is 30, and the distance
between two adjacent elements is 0/2, 0 is the working
wave length. At the same time, assume that the horizontal
and vertical channels are symmetric and have the same
radiation patterns. When the scanning angle is 0 degree, the
patterns of array factor at frequency 10GHz, 9.9GHz and
10.1GHz are shown in Figure 2(a), 2(b) and 2(c),
respectively. When the scanning angle is 20 degree, the
patterns of array factor at frequency 10GHz, 9.9GHz and
10.1GHz are shown in Figure 3(a), 3(b) and 3(c),
respectively. It can be seen that the amplitude patterns
dont change obviously when the bandwidth is 200MHz.
But in practical application the compensation technique in
frequency domain should be adopted.

Normalized amplitude (dB)

Figure 1. Basic structure of a polarization phased array radar.

0
-10
-20
-30
-40

-80

-60

-40

-20

20

40

60

80

Angle ()

Normalized amplitude (dB)

Figure 3(c). The patterns at frequency10.1 GHz

Figure 3. The patterns of array factor when the scanning angle is 20 degree

THE TRANSMITTED RADAR SIGNAL

Angle ()
Figure 2(b). The patterns at frequency 9.9GHz

In order to improve LPI performance of the radar, this

paper discusses a kind of pulse compression signal with
frequency coding among pulses based on the differences of
the polarization scattering feature at different frequencies
for a given target, and the polarization information can be

achieved through dual polarization channels simultaneously.

Assume that the transmitted signal frequency can be selected
from f1 and f2, and the signal frequency can be changed
according to some kind of random codes such as Barker codes.
A kind of method of frequency coding is shown in TABLE .
Assume that the polarization scattering matrix at frequency f1
for the given target can be expressed as:

S HV 1 S HH 1 e jHH 1
=
SVV 1 SVH 1 e jVH 1

S
[S1 ] = HH 1
SVH 1

S HV 1 e jHV 1

SVV 1 e jVV 1

(1)

The polarization scattering matrix at frequency f1 for the

given target can be expressed as:

[S2 ] =

S HH 2

SVH 2

S HV 2 S HH 2 e jHH 2
=
SVV 2 SVH 2 e jVH 2

S HV 2 e jHV 2

SVV 2 e jVV 2

(2)

When the frequency is f1, the transmitted signal can be

expressed as:

S (t )
ST 1 (t ) = H 1 =
SV 1 (t )

cos
A
u (t )e j 2f1t
j
sin e

(3)

Where i H and iV are the unit polarization vector in the

horizontal and vertical channels, respectively.
SRH1 ( t ) = SRH1 ( t ) e jRH1
(6)
= SH1 ( t ) SHH1 + SV1 ( t ) SHV1

S RV 1 (t ) = S RV 1 (t ) e

jRV 1

(7)

= S H 1 (t )SVH 1 + SV 1 (t )SVV 1

Herethe amplitude and phase polarization parameters are:

1 = a tan ( S RV 1 (t ) S RH 1 (t ) )
1 = RV 1 RH 1

(8)

(9)
When the frequency is f2, the transmitted signal can be
expressed as:
S ( t )
cos
(10)
u t e j 2 f t
ST 2 ( t ) = H 2 = A
j ( )
sin e
SV 2 ( t )
The scattered echo signal is:
S R 2 (t ) = S RH 2 (t )i H + S RV 2 (t )iV
(11)
2

S RH 2 (t ) = S RH 2 (t ) e jRH 2

= S H 2 (t )S HH 2 + SV 2 (t )S HV 2

(13)

= S H 2 (t )SVH 2 + SV 2 (t )SVV 2

Herethe amplitude and phase polarization parameters are:

2 = a tan ( S RV 2 (t ) S RH 2 (t ) )
2 = RV 2 RH 2

(14)
(15)

According to the above analysis, the received signal not

only contains the modulation information of the transmitted
signal, but also carries the polarization scattering information,
which transforms the frequency coding into polarization
coding. The echo signal includes more information, which is
helpful to improve the anti-jamming ability and LPI
performance of the radar.
TABLE I.

A 11 BIT BARKER CODE SEQUENCE FOR THR TRANSMITTED

AND RECEIVED SIGNAL

Where and are the amplitude and phase polarization

parameters of the transmitted signal, respectively, u (t ) is
the complex envelop of the LFM signal.
u (t ) = exp jt 2 T 2 t T 2
4
Where is the frequency modulation slope, =B/T, B is the
frequency modulation width, T is the signal duration, and
A is the amplitude parameter.
From above, we can obtain that the scattered echo signal
is:
(5)
S R1 (t ) = S RH 1 (t )i H + S RV 1 (t )iV

S RV 2 (t ) = S RV 2 (t ) e jRV 2

(12)

Pulse
number
Frequency
of the
transmitted
Signal
Polarization
of the echo
signal
Pulse
number
Frequency
of the
transmitted
Signal
Polarization
of the echo
signal

f1

f1

f1

f2

f2

f2

(1, 1)

(1, 1)

(1, 1)

(2, 2)

(2, 2)

(2, 2)

10

11

f1

f2

f2

f1

f2

(1, 1)

(2, 2)

(2, 2)

(1,1)

(2, 2)

IV THE SIGNAL PROCESSING METHOD

In practice, the echo signal of the target includes target
signal and noise, and several interferences may also exist.
Assume that there be one target signal and P interferences, the
dual polarization echo signal can be expressed as:

Si ( t ) = SiH ( t ) i H + SiH ( t ) iV
P

= S Ri ( t ) + J ij + N ( t )

(16)

j =1

Where, i denotes the number of the pulse.

J ij ( t ) = J ijH ( t ) i H + J ijV ( t ) iV

(17)

Where J ijH ( t ) and J ijV ( t ) are the horizontal and vertical

components of the jth interference when radar transmits the ith
pulse, respectively. The basic signal processing procedure is
shown in Figure 4.

Digital
beam
forming

Target
detection

Pulse
compression

Parameter
measurement

Figure 4. The procedure of signal processing

Di = ( gil gil )

(30)

l =1

If Di is less than the detection threshold and we can judge that

the target exists initially. At the same time, when most pulses
are judged as target signal for the given pulse number, we can
determine that the target exists.
CONCLUSION

The digital sequence Si ( n ) is generated after signal

sampling and it can be expressed as:
Si ( t ) = SiH ( n ) i H + SiH ( n ) iV
P

= S Ri ( n ) + J ij ( n ) + N ( n )

(18)

j =1

For each pulse, the matching filtering is finished using

matching filter function h(n) and the output signal is:
Sio ( n ) = S i ( n ) h ( n )

= SiHo ( n ) i H + SiV 0 ( n ) iV

(19)

This paper discusses a kind of dual polarization phased array

radar and introduces a signal processing method to improve
the target detection performance and anti-jamming ability of
the radar systems. The basic structure of dual polarization
phased array radar is discusses. Based on the radar system, a
LFM pulse compression signal with frequency coding is
proposed and polarization signal processing technology is
introduced. The LPI performance of the radar system can be
improved through frequency coding technology to some
extent. The wide band polarization scattering features of the
radar targets should be researched further.
REFERENCES

= S Ri ( n ) h ( n ) + J ij ( n ) h ( n ) + N ( n ) h ( n )

[1]

j =1

Where,

SiHo ( n ) = SiH ( n ) h ( n )
= SiHo ( n ) e

jiHo ( n )

SiVo ( n ) = SiV ( n ) h ( n )
= SiVo ( n ) e

jiVo ( n )

[2]

(20)

[4]

(21)

The waveform width of target signal is compressed after pulse

compression. Assume that range cell sequence of the signal
time window is i = k , k + 1, k + L 1 , then polarization
estimation of each sampling point is:
(22)
i ( n ) = a tan SiV 0 ( n ) SiH 0 ( n )

i ( n ) = iVo ( n ) iHo ( n )

The normalized Stokes parameter estimation is:

gi1 ( n ) = cos 2 ( n )

[3]

(23)
(24)

gi 2 ( n ) = sin 2 ( n ) cos ( n )

(25)

gi 3 ( n ) = sin 2 ( n ) sin ( n )

(26)

The mean value of polarization parameter in this pulse is:

1 k + L 1
g i1 = g i1 ( n )
(27)
L n=k
1 k + L 1
gi 2 = gi 2 ( n )
(28)
L n =k
1 k + L 1
gi 3 = gi 3 ( n )
(29)
L n=k

If the normalized Stokes parameter of the target at this

T
frequency is g i = [ gi1 gi 2 gi 3 ] for the ideal case, the
difference between the measured polarization parameter and
known polarization parameter can be expressed as:

[5]

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