International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)

433

AK Singh
1
, Dr. K.Subba Rao
2
1
Scientist in Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad, India.
2
Professor in ECE Department, CBIT, Hyderabad, India
1
aksingh_dlrl@yahoo.com


AbstractThe modern day Electronic Warfare(EW)
receivers are required to match with the current day radar
technologies like the Low Probability of Intercept(LPI)
radars with various intra pulse modulations such as Chirp,
Barker, Frank, Poly-phase and Poly time codes. This paper
presents the state of the art single board Digital Receiver
solution for intercepting and analyzing complex radar
signals. Also the pre and post processing methodologies have
been discussed from both the algorithmic as well as hardware
point of view.
Keywords Digital Receiver, DSP, EW-Electronic Warfare,
FPGA, Intra Pulse Modulation, LPI-Low Probability of
Intercept, Time Frequency Algorithms.
I. INTRODUCTION
Modern electronic intercept systems must perform the
tasks of detection, classification, identification and
exploitation in a complex environment of high noise,
interference and multiple signals. Some waveforms are
intentionally designed to make the detection process nearly
impossible. Such signals are referred to as Low Probability
of Intercept (LPI) waveforms
[1]
. Parameters such as carrier
frequency, modulation type, data rate and time or angle-of-
arrival are just a few of the fundamental features that
distinguish one signal from another. The sorting and
cataloging of signals leads to the process of identification.
The task of classification requires sorting into groups
having similar characteristics. Each of these initial
processes: detection, Classification, identification and
exploitation require advanced signal processing
techniques. A combination of FPGA (pre processing) and
DSP processor (post processing) is being used to extract all
the parameters of LPI radar. The complete information of a
pulse is embedded in the form of a Pulse Descriptor Word
which is further processed to display the parameters of an
emitter on ESM display.
II. LPI RADAR SIGNALS
LPI Radars use continuous wave (CW), wide bandwidth
low power signals of the order of a few watts making its
detection difficult. There are many modulation techniques
that provide a wideband LPI CW transmit waveform. For
the intercept receiver to demodulate the waveform, the
particular modulation technique must be known (which is
typically not the case)
The most common modulation techniques available to
provide LPI features are
[2]
:

i. Frequency modulation (Linear & Non Linear FM)
ii. Phase modulations (Barker, Frank, P1- P4, T1-T4
codes).

A. Frequency Modulation: Most of the LPI radars use
FMCW which is frequency modulation employing pulse
compression technique. The advantage of FMCW radars
are their extremely high time bandwidth product which
makes them very resistant to interception by ES systems.
Large modulation bandwidth provides very good range
resolution. Stepped, Ramp and Triangular frequency
modulations come under Linear FM while Sinusoidal and
Square FM comes under Non linear FM.

B. Phase Modulation: The phase modulated radar signal
can be expressed as

(2 )
( )
c k
j f t
s t Ae
t | +
= ----- (1)
Where s(t) is the transmitted signal, A is amplitude, fc is
the angular frequency of the carrier and
k
| is the phase
modulation function that is shifted in time. By varying
k
|
different phase coded signals such as Barker, Frank, P1,
Detection, Identification & Classification of Intra Pulse
Modulated LPI Radar Signal using Digital Receiver

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)
434

P2, P3, P4 codes are generated. Pulse radar which uses
barker codes will achieve a high range resolution while
transmitting low peak power. Further, by increasing the
number of elements or phase values in the sequence allows
the construction of longer sequences, resulting in still
higher range resolution waveform with greater processing
gain in the receiver or equivalently a large compression
ratio. Detection, identification and classification of these
kinds of complex modulations are a major challenge for
the EW receiver. However, with the advances in Analog to
Digital Converters (ADCs) and real time Signal Processing
using FPGA and high end DSP processor, it became
possible to process these signals.
III. DETECTION, IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF
LPI RADAR SIGNALS
Detection of LPI radar signals requires a large
processing gain because of the wideband nature of the LPI
radar. LPI radars are assumed to be low power, high duty
cycle signals with phase coding or digital frequency
modulations. As the coding is unknown and can be
complex, and assuming the frequency is also unknown,
then coherent detection is not possible and non-coherent
detection must be performed first
[3]
. Detection involves the
extraction of parameters while Classification requires
sorting the signal into groups having similar parameters.
The following two sections outline the implementation
methodology from an algorithmic and hardware point of
view for a modern ESM Receiver to detect, classify and
identify the various frequencies and phase coded radar
signals.
The identification of the extracted parameters of an
emitter is being implemented using a power PC. Here the
results obtained using pre processing and post processing
from FPGA and DSP Processors being used to identify the
various modulations based on the basic parameters of the
radar such as Frequency, Amplitude, Pulse Width, Time of
Arrival, Direction of Arrival and advanced parameters like
Modulation bandwidth, Modulation period, Code period
and time for an LPI Radar. These are the parameters that
distinguish one LPI radar signal from another and they are
required for effective exploitation.
IV. PROCESSING ALGORITHMS
The processing of signals in the hardware is done in two
levels i.e. pre processing using FPGA and post processing
using DSP Processor. These two mechanisms are
explained below.
A. Pre-Processing:
The present day Radar signals can be processed in real-
time if the time taken by the system to process signals is
equal to the time taken by the system to acquire the data,
especially if a radar signal is converted to digital data by
using high speed ADC with sampling frequency of the
order of GHz. In order to get real-time response, the rate at
which the data is processed should match the ADC data
rate
[4]
. Achieving this task is very difficult unless some
special DSP algorithms are implemented. A Real-Time
FPGA based FFT algorithm has been implemented as the
initial detection algorithm to extract the basic parameters
of the Radar signal
[5]
. The amplitude and phase spectrums
of the Fourier Transform give an idea of whether the
intercepted signal contains any frequency or phase
modulations apart from the basic parameters like
frequency, Amplitude, Pulse Width and Time of Arrival.
Decision logic is then used to decide whether the signal is
of LPI nature or not. The core logic of decision making is
comparison of phase and frequency of successive samples
obtained using initial detection algorithm i.e. FFT. The
presence of frequency modulation in the signal is indicated
by the spread of the frequency spectrum from the start to
the stop frequency
[6]
. The detection of the Phase Coded
Signals with the Windowed Fourier Transform is based on
an important observation that in the FFT phase spectrum,
the phase of the signal varies by only few degrees from
sample to sample in case of signals where there is no phase
changes in the input signal, but, the phase variation is very
high in the case of a phase coded signal
[7]
. Some of the
results obtained for detection of Frequency modulated and
Barker coded signals are mentioned in the test results in
figures 3 to 7.

B. Post-Processing:
As the present day Radar signals are modulated with
complex modulations, detection and analysis of these
signals using only FFT is very difficult. Hence, FFT is
used as initial detection algorithm to extract the basic
parameters of Radar and decide the nature of the signal
[6]
.
If the signal is of LPI nature and also the pulse width of the
signal is >10us (as is the case with most of the LPI radars)
the data being processed using a post processing technique.
Otherwise all the basic pulse parameters like frequency,
amplitude, pulse width and time of arrival of the signal can
be extracted in real-time with high accuracy at the pre
processing stage itself.


International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)
435

The advanced time frequency algorithms like the Choi
Williams Distribution and Quadrature Mirror Filter Bank
algorithms
[1]
are being implemented on DSP processor to
extract the advanced parameters of an LPI Radar. The time
frequency algorithms mentioned are highly mathematically
intensive and implementation of these algorithms in FPGA
is very difficult. TS-201 DSP processor is chosen to meet
this requirement of post processing algorithms. Hence, a
combination of FPGA and DSP processor being used to
extract the complete parameters of an LPI Radar and
classify them. The brief description of the post processing
algorithms WVD, CWD and QMFB has been explained in
the following sections.
i. Wigner Ville Distribution (WVD):

The Wigner Ville Distribution (WVD) is a two-
dimension function describing the frequency content of a
signal as a function of time. Using the WVD, frequency
and time changes in most of the LPI radar signals can be
identified.
The WVD of discrete input signal x (t) is defined as
1
2
1
( , ) 2 ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
N
j wn
n N
w l w x l n x l n w n w n e

-
= +
= +

-------- (2)
where x(n) is an input signal
l is the time variable,
is the angular frequency variable,
* indicates the complex conjugate
w (n) is a length of 2N-1 real window
function with w (0) =1.
The above WVD algorithm is simulated in MATLAB
for different signals and it is observed that for multi
component signals the cross terms (Oscillatory positive
and negative peaks, due to interference between spectral
components) are present in the Wigner-Ville distribution.
The cross terms cause interference that can obscure
physically relevant components of the LPI signals
modulation
[8]
. So, Choi Willams Distribution which has a
modified WVD kernel is used.

ii. Choi-Williams Distribution (CWD):
The Choi-Williams Distribution (CWD) is given by
[9]
t t t |
t
| e
te
d d d A e t C
t j
f
) , ( ) , (
2
1
) , , (
) (
}}}

=
-------- (3)
Where | (, ) is a kernel function and
A (, ) = x ( + /2) x
*
(- /2) -------- (4)
and x () is time signal and x
*
() is its complex conjugate.
This equation represents a generalized class of bilinear
transformation that satisfies the marginal conditions and
has good resolution in both the time and frequency spaces.
The Wigner-Ville time-frequency distribution, is based on
(2) where the kernel function is | (, ) = 1.
The Choi-Williams distribution uses an exponential
weighting kernel in order to reduce the cross-term
components of the distribution. The kernel function that
gives the Choi-Williams distribution is

e
o t
t |
/
2 2
) , (

= ------ (5)
Where (>0) is a scaling factor. By substituting the
above kernel in (5) into (3), the equation for the discrete
Choi- Williams distribution of the input signal x (n) with a
discrete time index and windowed for large data sample
sets shown below.

=
=

=
2
2
2
) , ( 2 ) , (
N
n
N
n
n j
x
e n l S l CWD
e
e ------ (6)
Where
) ( ) ( ) ( 4
1
) ( ) , (
*
2 /
2 /
4
) (
2
2
2

o
t

o
tt

W n x n x
e
n n W n l S
M
M
l
+ =

=
=

Here l is the time variable, is the angular frequency
variable, is a positive-valued scaling factor, and *
indicates the complex conjugate. and W(n) is a
symmetrical window (such as Hamming) which has
nonzero values on the interval -N / 2 to N / 2 and W() is a
uniform rectangular window that has a value of one for the
range of -M / 2 and M / 2 .

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)
436

The choices of N and M on these windows respectively
determine the frequency resolution of the CWD and the
range at which the function will be defined.
The discrete CWD can be modified to fit the standard
discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by setting =k/2N.
The final equation can be written as

=
=

=
1 2
0
/ 2 '
) , ( 2 )
2
, (
N n
n
N kn j
x
e n l S
N
k
l CWD
t
t

----------- (7)
Where the kernel function S

(l, n) is defined as
1 2 1 ) 2 , (
0
1 0 ) , ( ) , ( '
s s + =
= =
s s =
N n N N n l S
N n
N n n l S n l S

--------- (8)
The results of the CWD for a given frank coded signal to
extract the Frequency, Time period and bandwidth are
given in test results in Figure 8. The frequency of the
signal can be found out from the peak of the mesh plot at
view angle of 0
0
elevation and 90
0
in azimuth. From
Figure 10, we can observe that the frequency
corresponding to the peak occurs at 999.3MHz.The
horizontal distance between the successive strips on the
mesh plot gives the total code duration (T) of the signal.
From figure 10, it can be observed as 75.19-44.07=31.12
ns. The bandwidth of the signal can be found out from the
vertical distance between successive spectrogram strips.
From figure 10, the bandwidth is calculated as 1277-
784=493MHz. Once these parameters are known, the sub
code duration (t
b
) can be calculated as the inverse of
Bandwidth. The number of cycles of the carrier per phase
(cpp) i.e. within each code duration, is given by the sub
code duration (t
b
) multiplied by the frequency of the signal
(f
c
) and converting the result to nearest integer. The no of
phase changes are determined by dividing the total code
duration (T) by the sub code duration (t
b
) and converting to
nearest integer. As a result of this property, the CWD is
often thought as a signals energy distribution in the time-
frequency domain.

iii. Quadrature Mirror Filter Bank(QMFB):
The architecture of the QMFB tree is illustrated in Fig 1.
Each QMF pair divides a digital input waveform into its
high frequency and low frequency components with a
transition centered at /2. Since each filter output signal
has half the bandwidth, only half the samples are required
to meet the Nyquist criteria, therefore these sequences are
then down sampled by two. The same number of output
samples, as were input is returned. The square of each
element of the input waveform represents the waveforms
energy for that sample and each element represents the
energy contained in the corresponding tile in the left most
time-frequency diagram as shown in Fig 1. Similarly, the
outputs from each layer of the tree form a matrix whose
elements, when squared, approximately represent the
energy contained in the tiles of the corresponding time-
frequency diagrams as shown in Fig. 1
[1]
.
When the waveform consists entirely of White
Gaussian Noise, the tiles energy will have random values
with a Chi-squared probability distribution. When a
deterministic signal is added, tiles containing energy from
the signal will have probability distribution that is Chi-
squared with non-centrality parameters and will, therefore,
tend to have larger mean values and thus make threshold
detection a possibility.

Fig. 1: Quadrature Mirror Filter Bank (QMFB) Tree.

Since the transform is linear, a fundamental limit on the
minimum area of each of the tiles exists. However, looking
at the figure, it can be noted that each layer outputs a
matrix of energy values for tiles that are twice as long (in
time) and half as tall (in frequency) as the tile in the
previous layer.

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)
437

By properly comparing these matrices, it is possible to
find concentrations of energy and estimate their position
and sizes with high resolution in both time and frequency.
Using these techniques, a waveform can be decomposed
and the bandwidths, the time widths, and locations in the
time-frequency plane can be estimated. The algorithm is
being implemented at the post processing stage.
V. LPI DIGITAL RECEIVER HARDWARE

Keeping in view the above discussed aspects and the
complexity of the algorithms, Digital Receiver hardware
containing the state of the art data acquisition and
processing devices has been designed by adapting the
latest PCB board design practices. The block diagram of
the hardware is shown below (figure 2).















Fig. 2: Block Diagram of LPI Digital Receiver
The LPI Digital Receiver

Hardware will have two
modules namely IF & Clock synthesizer section and LPI
Digital Receiver Main board. LPI Detector and Analyzer
hardware receives IF input in the frequency range of either
160MHz20MHz (140 to 180 MHz) or
1000MHz250MHz (750 to 1250 MHz). The inputs are
amplified and filtered to eliminate any spurious signals
with a gain of 12dB to meet the input power level
requirements of ADC which is present on the main board.
These signals are fed to ADC which operates at 1350
MHZ sampling rate. The sampled data will be fed to
Virtex-6 SX-475 FPGA. The FPGA receives the sampled
data in real time for pre-processing and to compute/process
the signal parameters. After pre-processing, depending on
the pre defined logic criterion, the data is sent to two TS-
201 DSP processors for further processing. The processed
data along with parameters of the signal from DSPs and
FPGA will be given to a PowerPC for De-interleaving of
the signals. The output of the FPGA is fed through a 51 pin
D Connector and also through VME connectors to ESM
processor card for further processing.
VI. RESULTS ACHIEVED
Some of the following tests results obtained for various
modulations using pre processing are shown from figure 3
to 7 and post processing techniques are shown from figure
8 to 10.
i. Result 1: Real-Time ADC data Capture
Real-Time data Captured from an 8 Bit ADC with a
sampling frequency of 1.35 GHz using Virtex-4 FPGA is
shown in this figure 3. Top portion of the figure shows the
bus plot and the bottom portion of the figure shows
waveform plot using Chip Scope Pro Tool.


Fig. 3: Real Time Data Capture using ADC
ii. Result 2: FFT Spectrum on Real-Time Data
FFT Spectrum obtained for the ADC data captured in
Result1 is shown in the following figure 4. The plot shows
the FFT spectrum for 1us pulse width signal using 256
point FFT.










I
F

&
C
l
o
c
k

S
y
n
t
h
e
s
i
z
e
r

S
e
c
t
i
o
n

ADC FPGA

FPGA
















P
o
w
e
r

P
C


TS201








V
M
E

I
n
t
e
r
f
a
c
e

TS201
201
Time (ns)
A
D
C

D
a
t
a


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438




Fig. 4: Real Time FFT Magnitude Spectrum during pre-processing

iii. Result 3: FMCW detection using FFT
Frequency variation plot for an FMCW signal is shown
in the figure 5. The plot is obtained for a linear FM with
triangular modulation.


Fig.5: FWCW Detection using real time FFT
iv. Result 4: Detection of a Phase Modulated Barker Code
Figure 6 & 7 describes the magnitude and Phase
spectrum for a given signal without and with phase
modulation respectively. The variation of the phase
spectrum for a given 7 bit Barker code is shown in figure
7.


Fig. 6: FFT Spectrums of an unmodulated Signal

Fig. 7: FFT Spectrums for a phase coded Signal

v. Result 5: Effect of cross terms for a multi component
Signal
Figure 8 & 9 shows the output of both the CWD and
WVD mesh plots respectively when two frequency
components 750MHz and 1250MHz are present in the
signal.

Frequency Index













F
F
T

M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

Time

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)
439


Fig. 8: CWD output with no cross terms.

Fig. 9: WVD output with cross term at 1GHz.

vi. Result 6: Parameter extraction of Phase modulated
signal with Frank Code.
Figure 10 describes the extraction of Time Period and
Bandwidth using CWD mesh plot for a given Frank Code.
A 4 bit Frank Code with carrier Frequency of 1GHz
having code duration of 32 ns has been considered in the
present case.


Fig. 10: CWD mesh plot for extraction of Time Period and
Bandwidth
Table 1 shows the comparison of critical parameters
obtained by CWD with the actual values of the parameters.
Table 1: Detection Effectiveness of CWD for a Frank Coded Signal

Parameter

Actual
Value

Extracted
Value

Error
(%)

Frequency

1 GHz

999.3MHz

0.07

Total Code Duration

32 nsec

31.12 nsec

2.75

Sub Code Duration

2 nsec

2.0284nsec

1.42

No of Phases

16

16

0

No of Cycles of the
Carrier

2

2

0


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Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2012)
440

VII. CONCLUSION
The paper outlined both the pre and post Digital Signal
processing methodology for Detection, Identification &
Classification of Intra Pulse Modulated LPI Radar Signal.
The pre-processing and post processing is achieved with a
combination of high end Virtex-6 FPGA, advanced Tiger
SHARC DSP processor and Power PC. The proposed
hardware along with algorithms discussed serves as a
single board solution to detect the various frequencies and
phase coded radar signals and identifies their characteristic
parameters.
REFERENCES
[1] Philip E Pace, Detecting And Classifying LPI Radar, Second
Edition,Artech House, Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, 2009.
[2]. Bomer L, and Antwailer M, Polyphase Barker Sequences, IEEE
Electronics Letters, Vol 25, No. 23, 1989.
[3]. Aytuk Denk, Detection and Jamming Low Probability of Intercept
(LPI) Radars Naval Postgraduate School Masters Thesis, Sept.
2006.
[4] R. Pavan Kumar, A.K. Singh, Prof. K. Subba Rao, "High speed ADC
data synchronisation",National Conference on Signal Processing &
Communication Systems, (SPCOMS-2011), P.No. 37-39, 1st -
2nd Apr 2011, Andhra Pradesh, India.
[5]. James Tsui,Special Design topics in Wideband Digital Receivers,
Artech House,Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, 2010,pp 321-346.
[6]. Griffithss H D, and Bradford W J, Digital generation of high time
bandwidth product linear FM waveforms for radar altimeters, IEE
Proc., Vol139,No. 2, P. No. 160-169, April 1992
[7]. VVSRN Raju, A.K. Singh, R. Rama Rao, Prof. K. Subba Rao,
"Detection of Barker coded LPI Radar signals using
windowed FFT", International Symposium on Microwaves-
2010(ISM-10), P.No. 229-233, 11th - 14th Dec 2010, Bangalore.
[8]. VVSRN Raju, A.K. Singh, G Mamata,, Wigner-Ville Distribution
Algorithm for Identification Of Intra pulse Modulated Signals From
LPI Radar, National Conference on
Algorithms(NCA),2008,Mumbai,India.

[9]. L. Cohen, Generalized phase-space distribution functions,
Math.Phys vol.7, pp. 781-786, 1966.



BIO DATA OF AUTHORS

A.K. Singh was born in 1969 at
Ranchi (Dist) of Jharkhand State,
India. He Graduated in Electronics
and Communication Engineering
(ECE) from Institution of
Engineers (India), Calcutta in 1993
and M. E. in Digital System (ECE)
from Osmania University in 2003.
He joined Defence Electronics
Research Laboratory (DLRL),
Hyderabad, India in 1996 after
completing Electronics Fellowship
Course at Institute of Armament
Technology (IAT), Pune, India. He
has worked on Frequency
Receivers for Radar EW systems.
Currently he is Scientist-F and leading a team of scientists involved
in design & development of Real time Digital Receiver. He is also
carrying out his PhD research work under Prof. K Subba Rao on
Time- Frequency Analysis of Intra Pulse Modulated signals.



Dr. K Subba Rao has Graduated
from S V University, Tirupati,
India. He obtained the Masters
and Ph.D degree from Osmania
University (O.U), Hyderabad,
India. He Joined Osmania
University in 1981 as lecturer and
served as a headed the ECE
department. Currently he is
working as professor in Chaitanya
Bharathi Institute of Technology,
Hyderabad, India He has
published more than 150 research
papers in national and
international journals/
conferences. His current interests
include signal processing for
Radar & Spread spectrum
applications and Bio Medical
signal processing.