Patent ID: 8232907

Claim:
A high resolution radar signal processing method using narrow processing bandwidths and sampling rates for use in detecting a location and determining a range of a moving target, said method comprising: repeatedly broadcasting a series of frequency modulated probe signals using a step frequency radar, said step frequency radar comprising a transmitter and a receiver; each of said series of frequency modulated probe signals comprising three closely spaced linearly frequency modulated chirps, wherein said third chirp is broadcast prior to return of a first one of three corresponding target reflected echo pulses; collecting said target reflected echo pulses resulting from said transmitted series of frequency modulated probe signals using said receiver; measuring pulse magnitude and phase information using said receiver; storing said measured data in a memory; time aligning neighboring target reflected echo pulses of each series; applying a phase ramp to said neighboring target reflected echo pulses of each series using a fast Fourier transform; match filtering by applying individually, to each of said first, second, and third echo pulses, a conjugate of an idealized 205 MHz chirp; blending said first, second, and third match filtered echo pulse of each series together with a 5 MHz overlap, and with concatenation of said overlap and linear weighting to produce a coherent sum; applying an inverse fast Fourier transform for range compression; and using a Hamming window for side lobe reduction, to produce an effective wide bandwidth return signal for improved resolution.