A Novel Subarray Digital Modulation Technique for Wideband Phased Array Radar

A novel wideband digital array radar system is introduced in this article. The system has an open software-based processing architecture that provides a high degree of digitization and a flexible processing mode that employs digital stretch processing and digital modulation techniques to solve the beam divergence problem caused by the wide-angle scanning of both broadband and wideband array radar. The system simultaneously realizes a large range window, a wide dynamic range, and interpulse coherence for wideband array radar. The system is applicable not only to wideband linear frequency modulated (LFM) signals but also to wideband nonlinear frequency modulated (NLFM) signals. An engineering implementation scheme is also introduced. Key techniques, including wideband waveform generation, low data rate transmission, high-precision digitally modulated time-delay compensation, and high-precision system synchronization, are described in detail. In addition, an X-band experimental system is constructed, and the performance of this system is verified using typical target detection experiments.