A waveform design method for suppressing range sidelobes in desired intervals

•Waveform design method for alleviating range sidelobe masking is proposed.•PSD fitting and phase retrieve are used for designing the shape of the waveform autocorrelation.•Phase-only optimization based on WISL is used for waveform optimization.

We propose an approach for designing unimodular waveforms with low correlation sidelobes in one or more lag intervals. The approach includes an iterative spectral approximation algorithm (ISAA) and derivative-based non-linear optimization algorithms. ISAA is based on power spectral density fitting, phase retrieval, and alternating projection. Phase-only versions of the derivative-based optimization algorithms are also derived. These algorithms eliminate the unimodular constraint by expanding the objective function with respect to the phase vector and by replacing the normal line search with the phase-only line search. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by numerical simulations.