Understanding the characteristics of radar waveforms is important to analyzing and modeling radar performance. The information that a radar may provide on targets is to a large extent determined by the waveforms it employs. The following sections describe the principal characteristics of radar waveforms and how they impact radar observations and performance. Four major classes of radar waveforms, CW pulses, chirp pulses, phase-coded waveforms, and pulse bursts, are discussed in Sections 4.2 to 4.5. The range ambiguities produced by periodic transmission of pulsed waveforms are discussed in Sections 4.6 and 4.7, respectively.

Many simple surveillance radars use a single waveform that is optimized for search. Similarly, tracking radars may use a single waveform optimized for the tracking function performed. Other radars, especially phased arrays, often have a repertoire of many waveform types and durations that may be used to perform the various radar functions as required.

The waveforms described in this chapter are widely used, and a radar may employ either variants of these or combinations of waveform classes. Many additional waveform types have been devised and are used in radar, and this is not intended to be a comprehensive treatment of the subject. Further details on radar waveform design may be found in ^[1].