Investigation on reason of range profile distortion of plasma sheath target.

The range profile of the plasma sheath target is always found to be distorted when using the linear frequency modulation signal as the radar detection signal. As a result, the detection and tracking of the target became hard, or even failure. Here, three possible reasons of the range profile distortion is investigated in detail: (i) The broadening of the particles in the radial direction of the radar detection when the plasma sheath is produced; (ii) The scatterers in one range gate have different radial velocities that the range profile is dispersion due to the range-Doppler coupling effect; (iii) The amplitude and frequency of the echo signal are modulated by the time-varying plasma sheath. Here, the influence of the above three mechanisms on the range profile is simulated. In addition, for the accurate detection and tracking of these targets, the reason of the distortion should be distinguished. Therefore, several methods are proposed to distinguish the different mechanisms for the range profile distortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]