Centralized Adaptive CFAR Detection With Registration Errors in Multistatic Radar

Abstract

The problem of centralized adaptive constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection with registration errors in multistatic radar is considered. When the observation data from different radar sites are not properly aligned after transformed into a common coordinate system, registration errors occur. This can severely degrade the target detection performance and positioning accuracy of multistatic radar. In this paper, we focus on the design of adaptive detectors that are applicable for centralized target detection with registration errors in multistatic radar. A maximum likelihood estimation-based generalized likelihood ratio test detector and a maximum a posteriori estimation-based generalized likelihood ratio test detector are developed. Both detectors possess the CFAR property with regard to the unknown statistics of the background noise. Accordingly, the performance of the two proposed detectors are analyzed.