Scattering centers measurements using a modified matrix pencil method

A modified Matrix Pencil (MP) method is discussed with applications to the scattering centers measurements in step-frequency radar system. Comparison with the Kumaresan- Tufts (KT) method, a parameter estimation method belonging to the "polynomial" method, is given out, and it is shown the MP method is more robust than the KT method with respect to noise and to the pencil parameter changes. Also the MP method has the computational advantage over the KT method. Results compared with the IFFT method show that the resolution and precision of the MP method are both higher than those of the IFFT method, The MP method is more sensitive to noise than the IFFT method when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low. But the robustness can be significantly improved by using the mean of the estimates.