Block floating point for radar data

Integer, floating point, and block floating point (BFP) data formats are an alyzed and compared in order to establish the mathematical tools for select ion of an optimal format which fulfils the demands of high resolution radar (synthetic aperture radar (SAR)) data to large dynamic range and adequate SIN. The analysis takes quantization noise and saturation distortion into a ccount and concludes that it is preferred to use small blocks and a (new) m odified BFP format applying fractional exponents. Data from the EMISAR rada r system are applied to illustrate the merits of the different schemes.