Multistage Least Squares Algorithms for Clutter Suppression in Airborne Passive Radar Based on Subband Operation

Abstract

This article firstly analyzes the influence of utilizing the space-time adaptive processing (STAP) approaches in airborne passive radar (APR) systems on the dimension of the clutter subspace, and the signal-plus-noise ratio loss of the target, and illustrates that it is necessary to propose clutter cancellation algorithms suitable for APR systems. Combined with the property of APR systems, the multistage least squares algorithm based on subband operation (MLS-S) and the multistage least squares algorithm based on subband operation in temporal domain (MLS-ST) are proposed for the Doppler-shift clutter cancellation. The first method, in the case of the clutter with integer Doppler-shift bins, proves to be a simple solution. The second approach, at the expense of an additional stage, is suitable for more situations. Due to the use of Doppler-angle-dependence and subband operation to coarsen the range resolution, the proposed methods not only suppress effectively clutter along the clutter ridge, but also cancel the fractional-order-range clutter. In addition, the computational complexity of the proposed algorithms is low, and the clutter cancellation operations can be performed in parallel, which provide the possibility of real-time clutter suppression for APR systems. The feasibility of the proposed approaches is verified by diverse simulated scenarios.