Air Defense Initiative (ADI) Clutter Model
Abstract
This is a republication of RADC-TR-90-170. This technical report documents a detailed radar clutter model utilized throughout the duration of the Air Defense Initiative (ADI) program conducted by the US Air Force from 1985 to 1995. One objective of this effort was to identify possible sources of false alarms in an airborne early warning (AEW) radar environment, and quantify the number of sources as a function of radar frequency, location, season, and time of day. Analysis is presented for radars designed to operate at UHF, L-Band, and S-Band. The environments modeled included tropospheric clutter (precipitation, lightning, and turbulent layer), sea clutter (open sea and land-sea interface), distributed terrain clutter, discrete manmade clutter (buildings, vehicles, and vessels), angels (birds and insects), and aurora. ADI was initially created to provide for a defense against low radar cross section threats. The most significant problem facing ADI is achieving a high probability of detection against modern targets while maintaining very low false alarm rates due to clutter returns. Given the power and size constraints of an AEW radar, most of the burden for achieving this performance is placed on waveform design and signal processing which, in turn, is strongly influenced by how the interference from the clutter environment is defined.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA346972
Entities
People
- William L. Simkins Jr.