NONLINEAR PROCESSING OF RADAR RETURNS IN MTI SYSTEMS,
Abstract
An analysis of the effect of two nonlinear devices for processing coherent radar returns on the performance of a moving-target indication (MTI) system. A linear MTI processor--the optimum detector for moving targets when clutter is homogeneous gaussian process--is not optimum when clutter is a nonhomogeneous process, as is typical of terrain, where clutter amplitude varies widely between resolution cells. Some constant false-alarm rate (CFAR) technique must be used to prevent ground clutter from causing false alarms or low signal detectability. One method of achieving CFAR is by amplitude limiting before MTI cancellation. This study analyzes, quantitatively, the degradation in performance due to limiting, assuming a homogeneous clutter model. The analysis shows that a hard limiter, which destroys all amplitude information, severely degrades the system performance when the ground clutter has a Rayleigh amplitude distribution. A partial limiter, followed by an MTI canceller, is a better choice. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0674033
Entities
People
- S. Nishikawa
Organizations
- RAND Corporation