A fast pulse compression algorithm based on sparse inverse fourier transform

Pulse compression is a generic technique in radar signal processing which is commonly used to increase the range resolution as well as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To achieve a higher range resolution, the transmitted signal with a larger time-bandwidth product is required. However, the computational complexity for the pulse compression of such signals is high. In this context, we propose a novel fast pulse compression algorithm drew on the experience of sparse inverse Fourier transform to reduce the computation load. Furthermore, to ensure correct detection of the weak target signals, we first perform Doppler filtering to improve the output SNR, then apply the proposed fast pulse compression method. Simulation results confirm that the proposed algorithm yields a satisfactory weak targets detection at a significantly lowered computational expense.