Implementation of Adaptive FIR Filter for
Pulse Doppler Radar
Amritakar Mandal
1
, Brajesh Kumar Kaushik
2
, Brijesh Kumar
3
, R. P. Agarwal
4
1
Electronic Engineering and Installation Unit, New Delhi, INDIA
2,3
Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, INDIA
4
Shobhit University, Meerut, INDIA
Email: [amritkar2k@gmail.com; bkk23fec@iitr.ernet.in; brijesh2228@gmail.com; prajan@gmail.com;]
Abstract—Digital Signal Processing (DSP) systems involve a
wide spectrum of DSP algorithms and their realizations are often
accelerated by use of novel VLSI design techniques. Now-a-days
various DSP systems are implemented on a variety of
programmable signal processors or on application specific VLSI
chips. This paper presents the design of Adaptive Finite Impulse
Response (FIR) filter for moving target detection in various
clutter conditions in Radar Receiver. The design uses pipelined
COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer (CORDIC) unit and
pipelined multiplier to get high system throughput and reduced
latency in each of the pipelined stage. Saving area on silicon
substrate is essential to the design of any pipelined CORDIC. The
area reduction in proposed design can be achieved through
optimization in the number of micro rotations. For better
adaptation and performance of Adaptive Filters and to minimize
quantization error, the numbers of iterations are also optimized.
Keywords— FIR Filter, Radar, Clutter, CORDIC, Pipelined
Architecture, Micro-rotation.
I. INTRODUCTION
CORDIC algorithm was first developed by Jack E. Volder in
1959 [1]. CORDIC algorithm is extremely useful in efficient
and effective implementation of DSP systems [2]. This
algorithm allows implementation of trigonometric functions
like sine, cosine, magnitude and phase with great precision by
using just simple shift and adding operations [1-4]. Although
the same functions can be implemented using multipliers,
variable shift registers or Multiply Accumulator (MAC) units,
but CORDIC can implement these functions efficiently while
saving enough silicon area which is considered to be a primary
design criteria in VLSI technology.
This paper designs an adaptive FIR filter based Moving Target
Detector (MTD). In MTD, an adjustable local sine/cosine wave
generator is required. The sine and cosine terms can be
calculated using polynomial approximation, e.g. Taylor series.
But it requires a considerable amount of hardware space on the
silicon substrate. Interpolation method using table look-up may
be the other solution. But it also requires large number of gates
and ROM memory. The CORDIC offers the opportunity to
calculate the desired functions in a simple and efficient way.
Due to the simplicity of the involved operations, the
CORDIC realization of adaptive FIR filter is very well
suited in VLSI hardware design and its implementation. This
paper first describes the principle of target detection in Radar
Receiver and then CORDIC algorithm and pipelined
architecture design. Thereafter, implementation of CORDIC
with adjustment of micro-rotation has been described. Finally
CORDIC realization of adaptive filter is described.
II. PRINCIPLE OF MOVING TARGET DETECTION
For a moving target with a radial velocity, the range over
which the wave train travels differs from one repetition to the
next. Due to this difference in range, moving echoes are
distinguished from fixed echoes [10].
A target with a radial velocity,
r
V , travels a distance of
r r
T V . over one repetition period,
r
T .For the radar pulse, the
difference between the distance traveled (including return-trip)
from one repetition to the next is:
r r
T V d . . 2 = Δ
For two successive repetitions, the measurement of phase
shifts between the transmitted and reflected wave gives the
following difference:
λ π λ π φ φ θ / . . 2 . 2 / . 2
1 r r n n
T V d = Δ = - =
+
λ π / . . 4
r r
T V =
Where:
n
φ and
1 + n
φ are phase shifts between transmitted wave and
echo at n and ) 1 ( + n th repetitions respectively and λ is the
wavelength transmitted by radar.
This phenomenon is called Doppler effect. Due to Doppler
effect, the frequency of the wave reflected by a moving object
differs from the transmitted frequency by a value:
λ / . 2
r d
V f = , where
d
f is Doppler frequency
Now we can get phase shift in terms of Doppler frequency:
r d r d
F f T f / . 2 . . 2 π π θ = =
where
r
r
T
F
1
=
The above equation shows that phase shift and Doppler
frequency are proportional to target radial velocity. The phase
detector in radar receiver measures the phase shift between the
transmitted wave in the form of coherent oscillator (COHO)
and intermediate frequency (IF) signal. The detected output is
a radar vector signal with amplitude and phase.
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