Issues associated with radar applications on software defined radios

The use of software defined radios (SDRs) for radio frequency (RF) applications has spread to research labs, commercial industry and hobbies in recent years. This is because SDRs are low cost, readily available and software-tunable over a wide range of RF. Many SDRs are capable of full duplex on multiple channels and contain all the RF hardware needed for a wide variety of applications. Unfortunately, this high flexibility and low price point come at a cost of RF performance. This paper illustrates the limitations of SDR RF hardware and the impact of these limitations on radar performance. It then presents a technique for improving radar performance on a SDR.