Impact of Phase Noise on FMCW and PMCW Radars

Phase noise can severely degrade the radar performances by producing strong sidelobes which may mask small targets. Reducing those sidelobes by improving the radar analog front-end severely increases the system complexity. Another approach consists in developing waveforms more robust to phase noise. Even if the phase noise phenomenon is well known, it has been intensively investigated only in Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars, not so much in Phase Modulated Con-tinuous Wave (PMCW) radars. In this paper, we will provide a detailed analysis of the impact of phase noise on FMCW radars and on different code sequences for PMCW radars. This analysis will be used to compare the impact of phase noise on different waveforms. Both range profile and Doppler profile will be investigated. We will show that radar waveforms can be designed to provide low sidelobes in presence of phase noise. Our model will be validated by simulation.