CFAR detection of distributed targets in non-Gaussian disturbance

• Published in: IEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 612 - 621
• Main Authors: Conte, E., De Maio, A., Ricci, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2002; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aircraft components; Clutter; Constant false alarm rate; Covariance matrix; Detectors; Disturbances; Energy resolution; Gaussian noise; Invariants; Noise; Non-Gaussian; Radar detection; Radar scattering; Reflection; Statistical distributions; Working environment noise
• ISSN: 0018-9251; 1557-9603
• DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2002.1008990

The subject of detection of spatially distributed targets in non-Gaussian noise with unknown statistics is addressed. At the design stage, in order to cope with the a priori uncertainty, we model noise returns as Gaussian vectors with the same structure of the covariance matrix, but possibly different power levels (heterogeneous environment). We also assume that a set of secondary data, free of signal components, is available to estimate the correlation properties of the disturbance The proposed detector assumes no a priori knowledge about the spatial distribution of the target scatterers and ensures the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) property with respect to both the structure of the covariance matrix and the power levels. Finally, the performance assessment, conducted modeling the disturbance as a spherically invariant random process (SIRP), confirms its validity to operate in real radar scenarios.