A DETECTON ALGORITHM OF LPI RADAR SIGNALS

Krzysztof Konopko

Bialystok Technical University, Electrical Engineering Faculty, Bialystok, Poland,

e-mail: krzysiek@teleinfo.pb.edu.pl

Abstract: Low Probability Intercept (LP!) signals

are a class of radar signals that possess certain veform
features (low power, wide bandwidth, frequency
variability, ...) that make them difficult detectable by
today's intercept receivers. The paper describes
implementation of a LPI radar signal detection
algorithm based on two-dimensional signal
representation, noise reduction, features vector
extraction and a Radial Basis Function (REF) neural
network probability density function estimator which is
used for the final LPI signal detection. The numerical ' 2 0'---'---2'---3-----'
4-----'
Time [sl
simulation results for detection of the chirp signal are
presented. -l-
_ Signal representation - the WVD

1 Introduction

LPI radars have been under active study in the

recent years [1]. In contrast to impulse signals, LPI
radars typically use low power, wideband continuous
wave (CW) signals that are difficult to intercept and
identify. The success of a LPI radar is measured by how
hard it is for the receiver to detect the radar emission
parameters. Thus, many researchers use the word
"silent " to describe property of this radar. frequency [Hz1 Time [s)

A successful LPI radar signal detection algorithm

requires not only selection of a suitable signal *" .------,

representation, but also procedures of noise reduction -

and extraction of a feature vector for final decision. The WVD after noise reduction
These four steps required for a radar signal recognition
procedure are shown in the Fig. 1.

2 LPI signal analysis

The radar signal identification requires the selection ...

of a correct signal representation. Conventional signal

CI.OI om
analysis is based on time or frequency domain -[

representations. These analyses are appropriate for -l- Features extraction

stationary signal - that is, when the signal
characteristics do not vary with time. However, the LPI [F;,F2,.. ,FN]
radar signals have a non-stationary nature. The behavior -l-
of LPI signals cannot be sufficiently investigated by
Decision
using the conventional analysis methods for stationary
signals. Very useful tools for radar signal analysis are Fig.I. Procedure of a radar signal detection
joint time-frequency analysis [2] and cyclostationary
signal processing [3].
2.1 Time-Frequency Analysis and the spectrum) vary in time with single or multiple
A very simple and intuitive time-frequency signal periodicity. The correlation for signal components
representation is the spectrogram [4]. It is obtained as exists if the function (5) is different from zero.
the squared modulus of the short-time Fourier transform

of a windowed portion of the signal. The spectrogram 2
lim ..!.. fx(t+!")x*(t_!..}-J27rat dt '
Ra (r) = T400
I] x(t)h*(t_r )e-J27rfld{
S ( r;J) can be defined as follows (5)
T
x
T 2 2
S (r,J) = (1)
where T is length of a time series, a is the cycle
The length of window h(t)
determines the duration of the
frequency and R; (r)
is the cyclic autocorrelation
windowed signal x(t).
Improving time localization by function. It is well known that the power spectral
using a shorter window, results in a broadening of the density may be obtained from the Fourier Transform of
spectrum and consequently the frequency localization is the autocorrelation function. In the same manner
diminished. Of course, the reverse will happen if we Cyclic-Spectral Density (CSD) [3], may also be
lengthen the window. In that case frequency localization obtained from the Fourier Transform of the cyclic
is improved at the cost of time localization. The effect of autocorrelation function.
the window on the local spectrum will be minimal if the 00
characteristics of the signal are not altered by the S; (J ) = fR; (r)e-J27rat dr =
application of the window. The simplest way to this aim,
is to use the signal itself as the window function:
-too
.
=hm-X 1 )
T400 T ( +- XT ( +-
T
J
)a *

J
a
,
(6)

t,J) = f x(t+-)x
2 2
W(
r (t--)e
r -J'2tif:r dr
*
(2) where:
2 2
-00
t
where W( ,J) is the Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) of 2
XT (J) = f x (u)e-J2"fo du (7)
the signal x(t)
[2, 4, 6]. The WVD exhibits the highest T
signal energy concentration in the time-frequency plane
for linearly modulated signals, but has drawbacks in the is the Fourier Transform of the time domain signal x(u).
cases of nonlinear frequency modulated signals. The The additional variable a leads to a two-dimensional
WVD also contains interfering cross terms between each representation S; (J ) , in the bi-frequency plane or if,
pair of signal components. The main efforts of
a) plane [3]. Thus, a cyclostationary process is
researches is directed on working out new
completely characterized by the cyclic spectrum
transformations which could enable to remove the cross
terms [9]. For the signal processing a windowed version S; (J ) or equivalently by the cyclic autocorrelation
of the WVD, the pseudo WVD (PWVD), and smoothed function R; (r) .
pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution (SPWVD) are widely
used [10].
Pseudo Wigner-Ville Distribution is defmed as the 2.3 Examples of LPI signals analysis
following:
For analysis of the presented methods efficiency the
PWV ( ,J) =
t triangular modulation of a Frequency Modulated
(3) Continuous Wave (FMCW) and Binary Phase Shift
Keying (BPSK) have been used. The WVD, PWVD,
SPWVD and CSD of the following FMCW code signal:
where h(r) is a window function. carrier frequency - 1000 Hz,
Smoothed Pseudo Wigner-Ville Distribution can be sampling frequency - 4000 Hz,
written as: modulation bandwith - 250 Hz,
SPWV (t,J) = modulation period - 20 ms
+00 +00 (4) are shown on Fig. 2, and the WVD, PWVD, SPWVD
= fq(u-t) fh(r) x(t+)x*(t-)e-J27rfT dr du
-00 -00
and CSD of the following BPSK code signal:
carrier frequency - 1000 Hz,
where q(u-t) and h(r)
are window functions.
sampling frequency - 4000 Hz,
In addition to the WVD a number of bilinear
number of Barker bits - 7,
distributions have been proposed [2, 5, 6] for removing
number of carrier periods per Barker bit - I
the cross terms.
are shown on Fig 3.
2.2 Cyclostationary signal processing

Radio signals and most man-made signals have the

characteristics of being cyclostationarity. This means
the probabilistic parameters (mean value, correlation
 W'lQfW8ur ..
_'MCW 2000
2000

'000
. ...
'000
'000
1400
'400

r=
'200

i'...
i

Ir
... ...,
000
GOO
"'"
400
200
200

0 00 00 . .1> .2
0 0 .. O. 010 02 IItnI(SI
ClIne lsi

FMOY 2000 ------

''''''

' '''''

". . .
I
" f l lt I ' 111. ' . ' . .. ." . .... ' . .. 11 t 1 1 . 1 1 1 .,. ' '''' . . .
'"'"""11111"'1111111111111""'111"'"1111111'1'1""111IHIIIIIIII
f .. " , . , . .... U ... . . .... . .. . . . ... . ,., .... . . .. ... . . ....... .
.
. , .................... ................ " ...................... ,
................ - ... _ ....... ------... - .... ......
...... -
., 1,,,.,,,,,.,.,., .. . ,,1,, , ,1 , ,.1,,,",1111'., ' tll
:: t ::':. ::: I':: II I

...

o.
00 .1> .2
wne(11
wnelsl

2000 ri-------
''''''

' '''''

1400 .,.,......... II , ,. ""I" " " <" '.
, h .I. I .'.I.I.,. I . t t l. I .I.I.l t ' I I.III I I .'. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 1 111 1 1 1 , 1 ' 1 , 1... ..
,.fHllllfl ... ... III IIII".I.11,".1

-I
... III.......II.IIIIIIII.'
_1200 'It h h h h h . ... hh,
:2
' f I , I I I I I t ' , , I t ' , , , I , I , , , I , I I I I I
1000 1...... . .... ' 11HHi1H ...... '. i l l t, IHH...... .. .. .. 11I H IIH ......... H H .. I HHH I
1'1 I I I If' I 1 '1 I" I I" I" 1,1' 1 '1 I I II
" , , ,', ,." 4

' '

"" 100 I't ','.', ,'.'.'.', ',','f'.',' ,','::,',',',','.','.',',',',',',':",',' ' :,',',',',',' ' ' .....,':,.,','. ,',',',
'

'
, , ,. ,',',':::.
'
tl,',I"II,I,I, ,II"',.,I,I'."""'I,I,I'I"I ,III,I'.II"'I'I"
GOO .. .. ....... "....... . .................. ..... , .... .... . . .
. . .

05 . .. .2
liIINIl'l
lime lsi

seD- DFS Med'Iod ,orOIUI s9'1et. Of .16.00 N. 1024

o
C)'dItr(Hz}

Fig.2. The WVD, PWVD, SPWVD and CSD of the Fig.3. The WVD, PWVD, SPWVD and CSD of the
FMCW signal. BPSK signal.
3 Noise reduction where NTFD1, NTFD2 are normalized time-frequency
distributions.
A two dimensional signal representation may be
D(NTFD1,NTFD2)=
The Kullback-Leibler distance is defmed as:

NTFD ( t , f)1
subject to noise and interference from several sources,

I N TFD 1 [
NTFD2(t,f)1Jdtdf INTFD21
(14)
including sensor noise and channel transmission errors.
Generally the noise has a higher-spatial-frequency
= II [ ( t , f) In (/ > 0
spectrum. Hence, simple low-pass filtering can be
effective for noise cleaning. In general, the
representation TF(m, n) is convolved by a filter
-eJO-eJO

o INTFD21=O
function FF(i, j) giving the smooth representation [7]:
k 1
S (m,n)= L L TF(m-i,n-j)FF(i,j)
i=-k )=-1
(8)
5 Statistical detector

The algorithm proposed in this paper uses statistical

The next step of noise reduction can be carried out by
means of thresholding (segmentation). After this step
the output representation has values of zero for all
points where the input representation is below the
threshold level.
4 Features extraction
General problem of LPI radar signal detection based
on two-dimensional representation is a dimensionality
problem. For that reason, feature vector extraction is
required for dimensionality reduction and for contrast
amplification purposes.
As the features the joint time-frequency moments [8],
Kolmogorov and Kullback-Leibler distance [12] and
shape coefficients [7] may be chosen. The two
dimensional moment of order (p + q) of a time
frequency distribution TFD( t, f) is defmed as:
+00
+00
detector for solving the identification task. The decision
procedure is carried out by testing the hypotheses HI
which denotes a LPI radar signal against alternative
hypothesis Ho which represents noise. In general
statistical decision theory [12] there are four
fundamental entities which are the following: the
observation space, that is the set <e> of values of e which
parameterizes the possible distributions of the
observations, the set of all decisions d which can be
taken, the decision space D and the loss function l(e,d).
In the proposed algorithm the set <e> has only two
elements which represent a LPI radar signal and noise
signal. The decision space D has also only two possible
decisions dk and do which represent acceptance of
hypotheses Hk and Ho respectively. A procedure which
makes decision dk or do and leads to acceptance
hypothesis Hk or Ho, is based on a test function:
S = f( ), F (15)

f f tP rTFD(t,J)dtdf (9)
where Fis n-dimensional feature vector, and f(F)
Mpq = specifies the probability density function for the feature
vector of noise. The threshold value K can be computed
wherep, q=O,I, ... -00.
on the basis on following equation:
P( F
The central moments of a time-frequency distribution
TFD(t,f) is defmed as: j( ) S K )= ao (16)
+00 +00
P
is probability function, and ao is significance
f.1pq= f f (t-TY( f- l)qTFD(t,J) dtdf (10)
where
level and it represents probability of false alarm (a false
alarm occurs where a non-signal event exceeds the
where t and f are defmed as: detection criterion and is identified as a signal).

t-= MIO , --
Moo
-

f= MOl
Moo
(11)
In the proposed method the Radial Basis Function (RBF)
or the Hyper Radial Basis Function (HRBF) neural
networks are applied as probability density function
The second order moments (1-4)2, f.!lh f.!20) may be used to (pdt) estimators [10]. The RBF neural network [11]
determine an important image feature orientation. In consists of three layers: an input, a layer of hidden
general the orientation describes the directions of the neurons and an output layer. The input layer corresponds
principal axes. In terms of moments the orientations of to the input vector space. Each input neuron is fully

(
the principal axes o are given by: connected to the neurons of hidden layer. The layer of

J
1 I 2f.lt1 hidden neurons consists of m neurons. Each neuron of
O=-tan - (12)
2 hidden layer computes an activation function which is
J.izo- f.1oz
x
[ j
usually the Gaussian:
where 0 is the angle of the principal axis nearest to the
axis which takes on values in the range -1t/4 s Os 1t/4. G(x)= (2;r )"I1 . t exp Ilx2-CzillZ (17)
The Kolmogorov distance is defmed as: Za i
a

D(NTFDp NTFDz)=
+00 +00
where Ci
- center of i-th activation function, a; - width
2

= f f IINTFDI(t,J)-
I I NTFDz(t,J) l dtdf
(13) of i-th activation function, n - dimension of the
estimated pdf.
The output layer consists of n neurons which correspond 6 An Example of detection of LPI signal
to the classification problem. The output layer is fully
connected to the neurons of hidden layer. The output For the purpose of analysis of the algorithm detection
following signal was used:

( ( t }}
layer neuron computes a linear weighted sum of the
following form:
m
X (t )=sin 2" fo+ (20)
fj(x)= LWij Gi(x) j=1,2,... ,n (18)
i=1 where:
carrier frequency - 1 kHz,
where wij is the weight value between the neuron of i-th sampling frequency - 1 kHz,
the hidden layer and the j-th
neuron of the output layer. k - 20 kHZ/s,
For multidimensional pdf, the activation function can be modulation period - 25,5 ms
given by: The detection algorithm was based on the Wigner-Ville
G(x) =
( (x-cY )
Distribution and noise reduction procedure with using the
l Gaussian two-dimensional filter (8) where:
1 I
Q - (X -C) I
(19)
= 2 exp - FF
( 2" t det(Q) 2 g (21)
where Q is the covariance matrix.
The examples of two-dimensional pdf estimates are where:
shown in the Fig 4 and 5.
(22)
and n], n2 are the number of rows and columns in FF
0.04 respectively. The degree of smoothing is determined by
standard deviation 0" of the filter.
003
The signal was detection based on a feature vector which

( )
0.02 consists of two components:
M
0.01 F; = Ol , F; = ! tan -l 2Pll
. (23)
M 2
oo P20-P02
o
10 The density function of feature vector was estimated by
10
using the proposed HRBF neural network estimator. 20
neurons in the middle layer and 1000 learning samples
-10 -10
were used. The detection performance of the algorithm
was tested on the basis of 1000 Monte Carlo
Fig. 4. The estimate of two-dimensional normal pdf simulations. The probability of right detection as the
N(0,2) (40 neurons in the middle layer and 10000 function of signal noise ratio (SNR) is shown in the Fig.
learning samples). 6.
Probability of right detection

0.8

0_6

0.4

0.2
-4 -4

Fig. 5. The estimate of two-dimensional uniform pdf

II(-2,2) (50 neurons in the middle layer and 10000 9
- 5 -10 -5 0
learning samples). SNR [dB]
Fig. 6. The probability of right detection as the function
of signal noise ratio for different false alarm rates.
7 Conclusions

In this paper the LPI radar signal detection

algorithm has been developed. The algorithm is based
on the two-dimensional representation, noise reduction
procedure with using the Gaussian two-dimensional
filter and on the RBF neural networks probability
density function estimator which extracts the features
vector used for the radar signal detection. The presented
simulation results reveal a good performance of the
algorithm in conditions of relatively small values of
signal to noise ratio.

This study was carried out as a part of the statutory research

of the Bialystok Technical University SIWEllI05

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