A novel balanced pulse generator for through-the-wall radar application

A novel Ultra-Wideband (UWB) picoseconds pulse generator is proposed in this paper. It contains an avalanche transistor and a unique pulse shaping circuit. The avalanche transistor can produce drive pulses with the timing and amplitude parameters required by the step recovery diode (SRD), and the pulse shaping circuit utilizes the transition characteristics of SRD effectively to generate a couple of balanced fast leading edge pulses with high pulse repetition frequency (PRF) up to 1MHz. Measurement results show that the peak voltages of the output pulses are approximately ±30V at 500 kHz PRF and the leading edge of output pulses both are approximately 250 ps. The wide bandwidth of this generator ensures fine range resolution and high penetration capability for application in Trough-the-Wall radar sensors effectively.