Fast scan‐to‐scan integration algorithm for small target in sea clutter

Abstract

For small slowly moving targets detection in spiky sea clutter, a fast scan-to-scan integration preprocessing algorithm is proposed. By introducing a velocity steering vector, the scan-to-scan integration is achieved by matrix operations instead of traditional target path searching algorithms. The concept is demonstrated using measured data collected from an airborne maritime surveillance radar. Results show that the computation complexity of the back-end track-before-detect block can be reduced by two orders under the considered scenario.