Optimal Waveform Design Using Frequency-Modulated Pulse Trains for Active Sonar

Frequency-modulated pulse trains can be applied in active sonar systems to improve the performance of conventional transmitted waveforms. Recently, two pulse trains have been widely researched as the transmitted waveforms for active sonars. The LFM-Costas pulse train was formed by modulating the linear frequency-modulated (LFM) waveform via the Costas sequence to remove the Doppler ambiguity of LFM pulses. The generalized sinusoidal frequency-modulated (GSFM) waveform, another frequency-modulated pulse train, achieved an ideal ambiguity function shape with thumbtack mainlobe. In this paper, we focus on constructing an optimization model to optimize the LFM-Costas and GSFM pulse trains with the genetic algorithm. The pulse trains can be improved on properties of both ambiguity function and correlations between sub-pulses. The optimized pulse trains are proven to have better detection performance than those of the initial pulse trains, including the lower sidelobe levels of ambiguity function, as well as lower cross-correlation property. Moreover, it is affirmed that the reverberation suppression performance of pulse trains has also been improved through the optimization model.