Knowledge-based target detection in compound Gaussian clutter with inverse Gaussian texture

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of adaptive detection of radar targets embedded in heterogeneous compound-Gaussian clutter environments. Based on the Bayesian theory, a priori knowledge of clutter is utilized to improve detection performance. The clutter texture is modeled by the inverse Gaussian distribution to describe the heavy-tailed clutter. Furthermore, clutter's heterogeneity results in insufficient secondary data, and the inverse complex Wishart distribution is exploited to model the speckle covariance matrix. Based on a priori distributions of clutter, a novel detector without using secondary data is derived via the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). Monte Carlo experiments are performed to evaluate the detection performance of the proposed detector. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed detector outperforms its competitors in scenarios with limited secondary data.