Resonance-region Target Detection with

Wideband VHF Radar

Jun You, Xianrong Wan*, Hengyu Ke, Ziping Gong, Yunhua Rao
* Radio Propagation Laboratory, Electronic Information School
Wuhan University, Hubei 430079,China
xrwan@whu.edu.cn

Abstract
VHF radar shows great promise in detecting stealth targets,
since it works in resonance regions. Wideband VHF radar, as
a new radar system, has an enormous potential. In this paper,
target detection with wideband VHF radar that compensates
for the fluctuation of targets' RCS between different
frequencies in the resonance region is introduced. The Boeing
747-200 model and the Predator model were designed for the
study, and the aircrafts were studied in the 40~80MHz
frequency band. Results show that: (1) the wideband
detection is better than the narrowband single frequency
detection; and (2) for greatly fluctuating targets, the wideband
detection is better than the multi-frequency detection.
Keywords: VHF radar, wideband radar, resonance regions,
target detection.

also get better detection performance through adaptively

shaping both the transmitted waveform and the receiving
processor in accordance to the expected target down-range
profile [10, 11].
For aerial targets, VHF radar works in the resonance region,
and the wideband radar target properties are quite different
from that in the high frequency region, so is the wideband
detection performance. Better performance is expected of this
new VHF radar system. The aim of this paper is to verify that
using proper signal processing method, wideband VHF radar
can get better detection performance than narrowband VHF
radar. The paper is organized as follows. Simulations of RCS
are introduced in Section 2. Signal processing strategies are
discussed in Section 3. Detection performances are compared
in Section 4. Finally, conclusions and future work are given in
Section 5.

2 RCS of two typical targets

In the resonance region, the interactions between the different

parts of the target have a significant contribution to the RCS,
which makes it difficult to establish a unified model. Here, we
In recent years, VHF radars gain back their importance in choose two specific aircrafts, a large scaled aircraft like
ground-based air defence systems due to the anti-stealth Boeing 747-200 and a small scaled aircraft like Predator. The
abilities. First, the approximately 10 dB advantages in the two models can basically meet our needs. The main
RCS of the VHF band are proven by measurements and the characteristics of the Boeing 747-200 model can be found in
field experience [1]. Second, the long wavelength of the VHF the reference [12]. The Predator has a body length of 8.14 m,
band is hard to be matched by adaptive phase arrays and radar a span of 14.75 m and a height of 1.83 m.
absorbing materials [1, 2]. Actually, the targets RCS In this paper, the RCS calculation is based on the method of
fluctuates at different aspects, single frequency VHF radar moments (MoM), and the material is considered as perfect
may not perform well. Multi-frequency technology is an electric conducting (PEC). To guarantee the reliability of the
effective way to solve this problem, much important work has calculation results, we choose an edge length around 0.1
been done in this field [3-5], MOSAR is a representative wavelength at the working frequency. The aircrafts were
system. Besides, many other new VHF radar systems have studied in the 40-80 MHz frequency band, the edge length for
been designed to improve the ability of VHF radar [6-8]. Here, the entire model is shorter than 2 /15 at the highest
our attention is focused on wideband VHF radar, and little
frequency (80MHz).
interest has been shown in this field so far.
As shown in Fig.1, the model and the excitation are placed on
In the high frequency region, a lot work has been done about
the xoy plane, and the excitation is horizontally polarized.
wideband radar. Studies have shown that the wideband radar
Backscattered RCS of thirteen angles are calculated. We
performs better than the narrowband radar in many aspects,
calculate the RCS from 40 MHz to 80 MHz with the
such as detection, track and imaging. Wideband radar can get
frequency step of 500 kHz, transmitted and received signals
better detection performance in Gaussian distributed clutter
are both horizontally polarized, results are shown in Fig.2 and
through reducing the amount of signal energy backscattered
Fig.3. MoM is a frequency-domain method, if responses in
by the clutter [9], but when the unwanted signal is mainly the
the time-domain were required, only fast Fourier transformed
internal thermal noise, the method used in [9] will fail. It can
(FFT) is needed [13].

1 Introduction

From Fig.2 and Fig.3, we can see that RCS fluctuates with the
frequency and the target aspect. If we want to get a good
detection performance using narrowband transmitting signals,
multiple frequencies should be transmitted at the same time.
For Boeing 747-200, five frequencies are selected for these
angles, as shown in Table 1. The sum of the RCS of every
frequency is the largest at the corresponding angle range.

Angle(

Freq(MHz)

[0,30]
66

(30,75]
52

(75,120]
62

(120,150]
46

(150,180]
48

Table 1 Selected frequencies for Boeing 747-200

Fig.1 Grid model of the Predator

a

a
b

b
Fig.2 RCS of Predator,40~80MHz

c
Fig.3 RCS of Boeing 747-200,40~80MHz

3 Signal processing strategies

For the air defence VHF radar, the main unwanted signal is
not always the Gaussian distributed clutter, but the internal
thermal noise, so the high resolution will not reduce the
unwanted signal power by reducing the range resolution cell.
And in the resonance region, the target echo is dispersive, so
the received signal will not be matched with the transmitted
wideband signal. Given these two points, the conventional
match filter will not make the wideband detection
performance better than the narrowband detection. To address
this situation, we use adaptive matched illumination [14], a
process of controlling the illuminating electromagnetic wave
to be optimally matched with the specific target under test. In
essence, the technique has used a matched illumination and a
true matched filter, it is an extension of the conventional
matched filter concept.
The main idea of the method is shaping both the transmitted
waveform and the receiving processor in accordance to the
target echo [10,11]. Fig.1 and Fig.3 in [11] have explained the
method clearly. Two stages are needed to accomplish the
method: (1) a high resolution transmitting waveform s0 (t )
(e.g.: Barker code, pseudo-random binary code, chirp) is used
for identification of targets impulse response h(t ) ; (2) based
on the estimated targets impulse response, an optimal
waveform s1 (t ) for target detection and a corresponding
matched filter is defined. Here, we will introduce this
technique into the wideband VHF radar, and then discuss its
detection performance.
Relative to narrowband waveform, a SNR gain is obtained
when the radar is excited by the adaptive wideband waveform.

GSNR

S R ( f ) df

( SNR) HRR
( SNR) LRR

ET H ( f 0 )

H ( f ) df
2

H ( f 0 ) H ( f ) df

(1)

GSNR denotes the SNR gain, (SNR) HRR denotes the SNR of
the high resolution radar (wideband radar), (SNR) LRR denotes
the SNR of the low resolution radar (narrowband radar),
S R ( f ) denotes the frequency domain representation of the
received signal, ET denotes the transmit energy of the
narrowband radar, H ( f 0 ) denotes the impulse response of
the narrowband radar at f 0 . Because the adaptive wideband
waveform is matched with the impulse response of the target,

SR ( f )

H( f )

. For ease of comparison, the transmit

energy of HRR and LRR should be the same, we set that

ET

H ( f ) df .

It is this GSNR that controls the wideband detection

performance. When the radar works in the high frequency
region, H ( f ) is constant, GSNR equals 1. When the radar
works in the resonance region, GSNR may be less, equal or
greater than 1, and GSNR becomes a stochastic variable, so the
detection performance should be analyzed using statistical
methods. Next, we will combine Equation (1) and the

simulation results of two specific models to study the

detection performances of the HRR and the LRR.

4 Detection performances comparison

4.1 Wideband and single frequency
First, we will compare the detection performances of the
wideband VHF radar with the adaptive matched illumination
and the conventional single frequency VHF radar. As the
aspect of the aircraft is always unknown and random, we
assume that the probability density of the aspect f ( ) is
uniformly distributed. Then we can calculate the average
detection probability using (2):
__

Pd

(2)

Pd ( ) f ( )d
0

__

Pd denotes the average detection probability, Pd ( ) denotes

the detection probability at a certain incident angle,
denotes a certain incident angle.
__

Here, we calculate narrowband Pd of the five frequencies

__

given in Table 1 and wideband Pd from 40 MHz to 80 MHz.

Then, we compare the average detection probability of the
wideband signal and the five single frequency signals
respectively. The results are shown in Figs. 4-8 for the Boeing
747-200 model, the signal energy is first normalized by the
4

wideband signal energy ( H ( f ) df ) at 450 , then multiplied

by the SNR, the result is the actual SNR used to calculate the
probability of detection. The probability of false alarm is 10-7,
it can also be other reasonable value.
From Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, we can see the wideband detection is
much better than the narrowband detection, at 46 MHz, 48
MHz, RCSs of only a few angles are at the peak. In Fig.6 and
Fig 7, the narrowband detection performs only a little worse
than the wideband detection, since at 52 MHz and 62 MHz
RCSs of nearly half the number of anlges are very large. Fig.
8 shows that the performance of the narrowband detection is
nearly the same as the wideband detection, and this is because
at 66 MHz the RCS of Boeing 747-200 is located at the peak
for most angles, so the average detection probability is
relatively high. Fig. 9 shows that for the Predator model, 66
MHz does not perform well as it does for the Boeing 747-200
model. For a fixed target, an optimal frequency may exist to
make the detection perform very well, but this specific
frequency may perform worse for other targets. Overall, the
wideband detection performs better than the narrowband
(single frequency) detection.

Fig.4 Detection comparison of wideband and

narrowband ( f 0 =46MHz) for Boeing 747-200

Fig.7 Detection comparison of wideband and

narrowband ( f 0 =62MHz) for Boeing 747-200

Fig.5 Detection comparison of wideband and

narrowband ( f 0 =48MHz) for Boeing 747-200

Fig.8 Detection comparison of wideband and

narrowband ( f 0 =66MHz) for Boeing 747-200

Fig.6 Detection comparison of wideband and

narrowband ( f 0 =52MHz) for Boeing 747-200

Fig.9 Detection comparison of wideband and

narrowband ( f 0 =66MHz) for Predator

4.2 Wideband and multiple frequencies

At a single frequency, one targets RCS fluctuates at different
aspects and RCSs of different targets vary greatly, so the
single frequency radar may not work well. For VHF band, the
multi-frequency radar is an effective way to deal with this
problem. Above, the wideband radar shows better detection
performance than the single frequency radar, however, the
relation between the wideband radar and the multi-frequency
radar is more valuable to study.
For the multi-frequency radar, the detection is a binary
integration problem, m/N detector is used to improve the
reliability of the detection decision. A 1/N decision rule
achieves a high cumulative probability of detection with
relatively low single-trial probabilities of detection, but it also
increases the cumulative probability of false alarm by a factor
of approximately N [15]. Sometimes this increase may lead
to serious consequences. The echo model of multi-frequency
VHF radar can be seen as the Swerling 2 or 4 model [16].
When N equals 5, the optimal value of m equals 2 [17, 18]. In
practical situations, we can not fix the five optimal
frequencies, so we select five frequencies randomly, then
calculate the probability of detection using 2/5 detector. After
repeating the procedure 50 times, the average probability of
detection is calculated. We compare the detection probability
of the wideband detector with the averaged 2/5 detector,
results are shown in Fig. 10 and 11.
For Boeing 747-200 (Fig.10), the wideband detection is
slightly better than the multi-frequency detection. For
Predator (Fig.11), the wideband detection is worse than the
multi-frequency detection. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 show that the
RCS of Boeing 747-200 fluctuates more greatly than that of
Predator. This indicates that the greater the fluctuation is, the
better the wideband detection performs. For greatly
fluctuating targets, the probabilities of different frequencies
differ too much, so the joint detection probability of the
multi-frequency VHF radar is decreased.

Fig.11 Comparison of wideband detection

and 2/5 detection for Predator

5 Conclusions and future work

In this paper, we have discussed the target detection
performance of the resonance region with the wideband VHF
radar, the concept of adaptive matched illumination has been
introduced into the wideband VHF radar system, two specific
aircraft models have been designed for this study. The
wideband VHF radar shows better detection performance than
the single frequency VHF radar. For greatly fluctuating
targets, the detection performance of the wideband VHF radar
may be better than that of the multi-frequency VHF radar.
This paper has only discussed the detection performance of
the wideband VHF radar, many questions need to be
researched, such as to establish wideband echo models of the
resonance region, to solve the low altitude angle estimation
problem of VHF radars using wideband technology, and so on.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by national scientific fund
committee of China under grant (60971101, 41074116, and
41106156) and the fundamental research funds for the central
universities (2012212020214).

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