Digital correction of analog signal processing errors

A radar using a pulse compression system where the transmitted pulse is digitally generated and digitally compressed makes it possible to compensate for the non-ideal transfer function of the analog parts of the system. Correction can be applied either by modifying the frequency response of the matched filter or by digitally pre-distorting the transmitted pulse. Some practical aspects concerning the implementation of the pre-distortion are discussed, and some methods for deriving the pre-distorted signal are proposed. These methods are evaluated by computing the resulting peak and integrated sidelobe ratio when different transfer functions are considered. The results show that pre-distortion can compensate for non-ideal transfer functions and thereby improve the system performance.