A sequential constraint relaxation framework to design phase-coded sequences for radar systems

In this paper, the design of phase-coded sequences with good aperiodic autocorrelation properties including peak sidelobe level and integrated sidelobe level for radar systems is considered. The problem is formulated as a rank-one constraint optimization at the design stage. To tackle the resulting non-convex and generally NP-hard optimization problem, an iterative algorithm is developed based on the sequential rank-one constraint relaxation framework, which guarantees a local optimal rank-one solution. The proposed method requires solving a convex problem in each iteration. The procedure can be initialized by dropping the rank-one constraint or using a good sequence in terms of autocorrelation properties. Simulation results show that using the proposed method for finding phase-coded sequences leads to better peak sidelobe ratio and integrated sidelobe ratio for polyphase and binary phase codes compared to previous works in the literature.(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.